The Nerd's Eye View

Dec 24th Khartoum Sudan

It doesn't feel like Christmas at all as I'm sure you can imagine. Last night as I drove home with my uncle from day 3 of the wedding of the season, we passed by All Saints' Cathedral which was blocked off from the street by a mass of - you guessed it - white cars. When we got home, and bedded down for the night I could hear the doorman's radio outside my window. There were interviews from the South, where Sudan radio had stationed reporters in the southern capital, Juba and Abyei where last week shots were fired. They interviewed the man on the street who seemed pleased to be in the media and proud of a peaceful Christmas, finally. Beyond that the only other Christmas-y thing was the incongruous presence of a mechanical Santa Claus outside an appliance store.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dec 23rd Khartoum Sudan

Part of the reason for my visit to Sudan this time of year is my cousin's wedding. Those of you who know me know that the word "cousin" is used very loosely, and in some cases does not denote any sort of blood relation at all (although in the Sudan that is nearly impossible). To those people I say, yes, I am actually related to this girl my blood, albeit distantly in the Western sense (but very closely in the Sudanese sense).

I somewhat naively did not think that this would be The Wedding of the Season. This was naive since my aunt (my cousin's mother) is married to a member of one of the large political families in the Sudan. Their political prominence is a result of their religious prominence, which stems from the days of the Mahdist revolt in the mid-19th century. Without delving too deeply into the history of the Sudan, there is a lot surrounding the family and they end up being a mix between the Kennedys, the Corleones (without the murder and extortion), and the royal house of Morocco (also less murder, I think). In other words, what else could the wedding possibly be other than the event of the year?

Sudanese weddings (for the uninitiated) are interminably long affairs spanning multiple days. Back in days of yore (say 30-40 years ago) a wedding could take as long as 40 days depending on the family and their stature. Nowadays a reasonably long wedding is more like a week. They go in roughly this order:

The 'Agid (or contract): wherein, once the two parties have agreed to shackle themselves together for all time, their representative (typically fathers) solemnly agree that the agreement has happened in the witness of friends, relations, grandees, and so on. Slightly roundabout, but that's how it's done. This takes about 10 minutes and for all intents and purposes, the actual marriage part is done. This is a prime place for spotting long lost friends, or just watching a sea of white robes drown the father of the bride. In the case of my cousin, this took place at the mosque near the Mahdi's tomb. The family set up a large enclosure filled with tables topped with fresh fruit, dates and nuts, and fresh juices. The tables were ranged around a large dais where the family sat, surrounded by people from the other big families. Government ministers, policy makers, and all around important folks mingled with the rest of us common folk. The crowd was enormous and loud so you couldn't hear anything going on. Usually, everyone says a prayer over the union that it may successful etc, but this time the whole thing went off without my even knowing, due to the number of people.

The Shayla (gift exchange): this is a more or less defunct section of the wedding. In economically better and simpler times, the groom's family would pile into cars and buses and head over to the bride's family home and present them with all sorts of gifts ranging from sacks of charcoal to fine silk garments (for the ladies of course!). In part it is also a method for the two families to share the financial burden of the wedding ("we'll pay for the stuff, you cook it and here are some dresses" in short). This tradition has fallen by the wayside for the most part, and when undertaken it often takes the form of cash.

The Hinna (bride and groom): These are two separate, but identical, events. At each event the person in question (bride or groom) is sat down and has their hands and feet stained with henna. For men it's just a flat coat on the soles of the feet, and a handful in each hand (or just the right) to stain the palms. For women it's much more elaborate geometric and arabesque shapes, which might be familiar from Indian weddings you may have seen. This all takes place against the backdrop of songs and some dancing, and family walking in and out. Technically all of the application of henna should be done by family members, although for women that has changed as designs have become much more elaborate. Professionals are brought in and all the women of the house avail themselves so that at the wedding, the bride, her mother, her sisters and cousins all have elaborate designs wrapping around their hands and wrists and their feet and ankles. If you play your cards right and keep going to weddings, you can be properly decorated almost all year long!

Raqs Al'Aroos (The Bride's Dance): In this step, the bride dances for the groom and her own female family members. The dance is very stylized and in many ways it is quite seductive, but unfortunately this tradition has almost completely disappeared. I haven't heard of one happening in many a year and most women nowadays don't even know how to do the dance itself. Moreover, as Sudanese culture skews more ridiculously conservative this sort of thing becomes even less likely. This is how the cultural heritage of a nation fades away and disappears completely.

Dukhla or Zafaf (the Wedding Party): This is the most recognizable part of the wedding to most foreign observers. It most closely approximates the wedding reception in a typical American wedding, in that everyone shows up, eats a meal and then is treated to the sight of the bride and groom entering as husband and wife for the first time. There's a wedding singer, and lots of dancing to Sudanese songs. It's a rare thing to hear any western music, and I have never seen a DJ at a Sudanese wedding (except for one time at one located in Great Neck, Long Island, but even then he was simply a warm up to the wedding singer).
In the case of my cousin's wedding, the dukhla took place in the evening at a large date palm grove on the Nile in Omdurman (the Mahdist capital of Sudan, on the western bank). A cool breeze blew through the palms and whipped up the enclosure. All the women at the wedding were freezing as they ate their dinners, and the men laughed with forced joviality. The first wedding singer wrapped up at 11p, and people took that as their cue to get to a warmer environment, despite assurances that there would be a second wedding singer carrying us through to 2a. So it was a much smaller group that danced with the second singer, and made their bleary eyed way back to their cars.
My poor cousin was so exhausted at the end of that night - and has been looking so frail throughout - that I couldn't help but worry. At least, I thought, the wedding was over - but it wasn't, there was one last step the next day.

Jirtik: There's no real translation for this ceremony, and it's a singularly Sudanese tradition with no roots, so far as I can tell, in the Muslim faith or Arab culture. The bride and groom (no doubt fresh from the presume consummation of their marriage) enter (again to much fanfare) and are congratulated by friends, relatives and assorted well-wishers, as they sit on a bed covered in red cloth. The bride is covered in a red shawl, and the groom has red headband with a brass crescent moon on it tied onto his head. The couple's oldest female relations sit with them, while the younger married women surround them, and smear their heads with a sandalwood paste (there are other things, but the sandalwood stands out). They are given a large basket with dates and rice and candy in it and pass handfuls back and forth to each other. Then they are given a bowl (or nowadays, a glass) of milk which they each drink from, and then the older women will spray them with some of the milk. It's my belief that this is actually part of a very old fertility ritual. It may date back all the way to pharaonic times. This certainly explains why the old women are involved, the red sheets (come on, do I have to spell it out for you?), the milk, and so on. It's really quite fascinating when you think about it.
My cousin's jirtik was held at the family farm about 35 miles south of the capital. It was set to start at 2p which had my mother yelling at me to get ready around 1p. Upon arrival we found no sense of urgency at all. Ladies were sitting around in the large living room - or perhaps lounging is the better expression. My Dad and I sat in the garden waiting for our 2p (3p, 4p?) departure. An hour and a half later, my Dad got in a car headed over and sold me out. Two hours after that, we had almost finished loading tea cakes and nuts into the last remaining cars, and the groom had just arrived. So it was that we found ourselves finally heading to the family farm at around 5p.
The far is set far enough back from the road that you begin to think that it doesn't exist. The way there is off the main road and onto an unmarked dirt road that meanders through an unremarkable dusty field. Eventually you are actually met by a traffic cop who directs you to another traffic cop who directs you to the farm itself. For miles around there isn't much to see, except for in the distance behind the farm where there is a minaret that tells you that there is a small village or town back there somewhere.
There were a lot of people (again) at the farm, all invited (how else would you know to come all the way out here). They were waited upon by an army of waiters and cooks, and watched by the local yokels - who stood at a distance and only dared come closer at night closed in around the mango trees (I've always wanted to say that). The Sudanese contingent was supplemented by some visiting poobah's, most notably the British ambassador. Her Excellency was accompanied by a retinue of crewcut military types. All no doubt good Yorkshire boys from the Royal Marines, they ranged around the garden with eagle eyes sharp, on the lookout for malfeasance of any sort. I think they were slightly disappointed at how friendly everyone was, offering them seats and food and drinks and such (or maybe extremely suspicious). One of them asked one of the family hangers on what was going on, and was met with a complete lack of understanding.
The crowd was composed of women, mostly, in fantastical peacock colors surrounding the singer (again), with their back to the "couple's bed". They in turn were surrounded by a cordon of white clad older men, beyond whom sat the "young lions", as they do at the edge of any pride.
Typically this is women's ceremony with very few men present outside of immediate family (silk and gold abound and you can tell it's the real thing because it doesn't gleam, it just sits matte and glowing). But it was the bride's great uncle, who - in a stunning turn of affairs! - performed the jirtik ceremony.

We drove back to my aunt's house afterward and said our good-byes to the couple, who were headed off to their honeymoon. My poor cousin was exhausted and it only showed slightly in her face, because she's a classy girl. The farewell was tearful, surprisingly so, and I felt overcome with the need to give them advice, which is my own wedding tradition. At the end of the wedding I think we all felt a little let down and empty.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Dec 21 1:17p Khartoum Sudan

Echoing many other developing nations the Sudan has seen a surge in motor vehicle ownership and traffic in the past decade. When I was a youngster (says the old man) a lot of households had access to one car, and many had access to none at all. So public transportation was the mode of travel for many people. In the intervening years more cars have entered the country, and the roads are packed from a little after sundown to about 7:30p. This may seem unremarkable to those who have to brave traffic in the Bay Area every morning and evening, but when you recall that there are no highways here and that the city was built in the late 1890's you get a feeling for the claustrophobia that appears all over the roads.

Driving in the Sudan one is sometimes struck by the overall homogeneity of the cars. On any given road most of the late model cars (say the last 8-10 years worth) are uniformly white in color. The Sudan is the land of white cars and white robes, like a Japanese funeral (or a Sudanese wedding). This color choice is odd since the Sudan is one of the dustiest places known to man and hence it is impossible to keep a white car looking anything but dirty for longer than 10 minutes at the outside. Yet white cars proliferate mainly because of peoples' unreasoning need to believe that they are maximizing the future salability of their car. Yes, that's right, people buy cars immediately thinking of when they are going to sell them, and since everyone is driving white cars, they are the most marketable, and so people buy more white cars, ad infinitum. An ancillary effect is to make white cars more valuable off the lot than cars of other colors. I sometimes wonder what must be going through the minds of the people who aren't buying white cars. After all, when everyone is insane, the only sane person is automatically the only crazy one as well.

The whiteness of the cars at rush hour makes for a white-out effect such as can be seen on an alpine slope in winter. The Sudanese flavor is provided by the khaki tint given to the edges of everything by the omnipresent dust, which somehow fails to soften the glare from windows and trunks. The glare of course is just the type of enhancement to the misery of Khartoum traffic that one can never quite grow accustomed to. The traffic is, of course, bound by natural law only, specifically that "nature abhors a vacuum". Wherever there is space on the road, you can rest assured that it will be filled near instantaneously. Other than cars and pick-up trucks, the roads are choked with "auto-rickshaws" (much less exotic than they may sound, they were imported in the late 90's from southeast Asia and account for a significant part of the increase in pollution in the capital) and micro-buses. These two small vehicles help to fill in the gaps which would otherwise require significant body work or insanity to fill. They swerve and dodge, insinuating themselves between larger vehicles like kids at a wedding, and regard signals and common sense as mythical tools from a bygone age. All of this is combined with adrenaline to create a heart wrenching experience behind the wheel which would - if located under six flags instead of the single one we have here - make for an excellent and very profitable ride. So you are riding, whether you like it or not, by the seat of your pants, on a street where a guy in the far right lane can suddenly try to make a left turn, and that's when you see a pedestrian.

Back to nature: when a new species is introduced or begins to proliferate, other species will adapt to the presence of this new species or they will risk being pushed out. Thus, pedestrians have adapted to the capriciously dangerous traffic patterns in a variety of ways, and just like nature they are all quite obvious yet completely unexpected. For example, people will cross the street without looking up, despite the fact that they are crossing a major thoroughfare. Looking would make you at least partially responsible for the accident that is sure to follow, and also be unseemly. There is also the fact that groups of Sudanese will straggle off the sidewalk and range almost to the middle of the street - ok so that makes no sense, yet no one gets his no matter how leisurely they appear to be strolling. Watching pedestrians ends up being like playing Grand Theft Auto - when an event happens (e.g. a group pushing a stalled car), there is a lot of activity and running around. But after they are done, done they wander off slowly like AI characters, regardless of whether or not they are in the middle of the street. All quite natural.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dec 19th Khartoum, Sudan 7:17p local time

Khartoum is where I spent my formative years (junior high and high school) and, for a place that I didn't really spend that much time in, I am tied to it very strongly. The city, and the country, have changed considerably even in the two years I've been away. After my last trip I had lamented the rampant consumerism that had suddenly engulfed the country, and on my return I find it even more pronounced than before, yet also more refined. To go back to my note about marketing abroad, I notice how different print advertising is here than it is in Abu Dhabi. Most new print advertising is very Sudanese in character, showing Sudanese families or individuals engaged in whatever behavior the phone company or the producers of toothpaste want them to.There is a tinge of humor (and good humor) to these billboards, which one does not find in Gulf advertising, and to my mind has a lot to do with the national character.

That national character appears to be changing, of course, as everything inevitably does. I accompanied my cousin, Gift of Gab, and his wife to one of the new garden style cafes that have sprung up around the capital. There under a large neem tree (what is the English name of those?), and various large, fancy new umbrellas were arrayed around a lot of clean, glass-topped tables. Here in the land of cold Pepsi and somewhat cool water, was a menu with ice mocha frappacinos, Slush Puppies, and so on. This may not seem like much to the casual foreign observer, but growing up, there were only a few options: water, Pepsi (not Coke), fruit juice (of whatever kind happens to be in season), or tea (only hot, only black). The embarrassment of riches that these new choices represent is mind-blowing in light of this fact. The clientele of this cafe was not composed primarily of foreigners (and Westerners in particular), but mainly of Sudanese from a wide variety of age groups. The young folks were dressed in incongruously conservative clothes, which somehow managed to also be revealing and fashionable (this schizophrenic fashion is something I notice but am ill-equipped to discuss - you can look up a wide variety of articles on youth culture in Iran to get a feel for what I am talking about). The open flirting between tables of high school aged boys and girls is, again, not something remarkable to foreign sensibilities but quite surprising to those of us who have seen this change. While there is no where on earth where young people do not make goo-goo eyes at each other (and I mean nowhere), the openness or subtlety with which they do it marks out the inhabited boundaries of the culture (beyond which, of course, only dragons lay).

The second thing I noticed was the condescension of the young folks congregated at this cafe directed towards those who didn't belong there - including myself. With everyone dressed to the nines to see and be seen, my own much more casual style of dress marked me out, not as an expatriate but a lower-class pretender sullying the sanctum of their much more sophisticated world. Perhaps the small class warrior that unaccountably lives within me saw more than was actually there, but it seemed to me to be a sad commentary: that the gap between the haves and have-nots in the Sudan had widened so much, and that there was some perceived shame to being "poor" in a country that is composed primarily of poor folks.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mon Dec 15th 2008 1:23pm Abu Dhabi

Still in Abu Dhabi, having made the grand tour of the new Sheik Zayed Mosque and the homes of various Sudanese friends and family last night. This morning my aunt mentioned that she needed to pick up a few things for her own trip back home. We got to a store with the ambitious name of "The Ambassador" and started browsing.

In the Ross-like aisles Bollywood hits played in the background as I browsed through racks of ugly turtlenecks and sweaters that would make Bill Cosby blush. Beside them were Confederate flag buckled belts (and yes, that is a mudflap girl silhouette on the buckle for good measure).

I'm always interested in media around the world, and particularly in advertising and the like. How is "cool" conveyed in different places? What are the particulars of how you get someone to buy your particular brand of hair cream? So when I am wandering around in shopping centers, stores, etc my eyes are constantly seeking out the outsized smiles of models, and the phrases emblazoned on the fronts of T-shirts and the like.

Along with whatever language is spoken in the country you happen to be in, invariably there is a lot of English (or "English") spattered across product packaging and in-store advertising. What confuses is how little effort (or worse how much effort) was put into these blurbs, and how little I feel one gets out of them. You're pretty much limited to the feeling of "hey, that's English! Awesome!". A particularly enjoyable example is the advertising for the "couture house" Louis Phillipe, whose motto, "The Upper Crest", is coupled to winsome looking white boys pouting at the camera or exclaiming with well-paid joy. Those of us who are part of the "upper crest" of society appreciate this little nod and of course would buy no other lime green striped shirt. For the kids we see a lot of T-shirts emblazoned with phrases like "I do it coz [sic] I like it!" and "We are the Team [sic]!" But these are all frivlous ad copy, right? It doesn't extend to care tags does it? Which you'd think until you were picking up the 100% silk "machine-washable" ties labeled "Lavorazione a mano" (I'm no linguist but I think that means "wash by hand" in Italian).

But I digress. The main point here is the separation of advertising from the run of real life in the country (even more so than it usually is), especially in the surreal world of the Gulf nations.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'll be posting notes as I complete them. Hope everyone enjoys them.

Dec 13th 2008 Abu Dhabi

The Trip Starts
What a day, I guess technically it's two days, which would explain why I am so wiped out. My itinerary took me from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Dubai, the latter portion of which is a good 15 hrs on a plane - and I've still got the Dubai-Khartoum leg to go! The good news is that my return trip to San Francisco is going to be direct from Dubai which knocks off about 5.5 hrs from the return.

As usual I'll be just noting down some observations from my trip, to give a taste if you will, of the surprising sandwich that travel can be. I'll try to be brief this first time since I am so loopy, though. San Francisco airport was a blur. Frankly the only remarkable thing about it was the fact that I got singled out for a random screen (random) and got to go through the "puffer" machine. I'm not sure precisely how this machine operates in screening you for dangerous materials/weapons etc, but it basically puffs 7 air jets at you briefly as you stand in a booth that looks like it should transport you to the surface of an alien planet. The jets are hard enough and fast enough to make you jump slightly, which I did. The overall feeling is one of being groped in an elevator and I emerged from the booth feeling slightly dirty.

LA was more interesting, mainly due to my aggravation with it. My luggage had been checked through all the way to Dubai but for some unknown reason I couldn't get a boarding pass for the second leg of the trip. So I was forced to leave security, make my way to the international terminal and get into the check in line for my flight on Emirates. The line itself could have been for a flight to Mumbai or New Delhi judging from the faces I saw. Parents, squalling children (was I the only person on the flight without a small child?) and pot bellied Indian-American Princesses abounded, leaving me with a sense that I was on the wrong flight. I was immediately noticed (flagged?) for my lack of luggage and called to the front of the line and after assuring the agents that I had checked my bags through to Dubai, I was given my boarding pass and given the opportunity to wander.

LAX was a blur of mustachioed women and incongruities (like the one jam-packed security line only 50 yards away from the one completely empty security line; or the Aeroflot economy class counter), and I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to do anything other than call my brother and some friends and twitter a little. I discovered far too late that my seat assignment was completely wrong and as I got onto the plane realized with horror that I had been sent to the back of the plane and wedged in a middle seat between a fat man and an accountant. Rather these were the designations I gave the two men flanking me, since one was fat and the other looked like a old bookkeeper who had never managed to advance at his firm. Fortunately there was some last minute shuffling with another man moving to a different seat which left me with a little more room.

The flight was uneventful except for all the turbulence, and I managed to sleep some which was a blessing. The only thing I could honestly complain about was the mass of children running up and down the aisles, crying, singing loudly and generally making me wonder why there are no FAA rules for this type of terrorism. I traveled a lot as a child and I don't ever remember myself or my siblings being this badly behaved on the plane - at the airport was another story, but you get my drift. Needless to say, I was grateful to be on the ground when we arrived and even more to see my aunt in the arrivals hall.

Dubai has changed significantly since the last time I was here 4 years ago, and if possible it is even more shiny and new than before. The terminal we arrived in alone was such a mass of gleaming stone floors lit by LED lighting that I imagined that it must have been completed about an hour before our arrival. The rest of the city at night seemed to be an oversize, illuminated forest of construction cranes, beyond which one could make out the lights of skyscrapers in the distance. The Dubai real estate market has suffered with the global economic situation, and all the major projects seem to have ground to a standstill in the absence of credit, but it's hard to tell from the road. I'll spare you a treatise on the economics situation of the Emirates though, in favor of a less visible problem.

All along the roads leading in and out of the urban centers are large areas that appear to be container storage yards. Upon closer inspection you see that the containers have light seeping from them and are apparently outfitted with ventilation fans. That's because they are makeshift "temporary" housing for all the laborers that it takes to keep this place constantly under construction. The signs from the road say "labor camps". I don't think anyone here realizes how terrible of a term that is.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm in the Sudan. I'm on a USB wireless broadband connection and weirded out by the incongruities. More later.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I arrived in Dubai last night and drove with my aunt and uncle to Abu Dhabi. I was relieved to find they had a wireless network set up and went to check what my peoples have been putting up at Flickr when I was met with this:

My first brush with internet censorship! I feel so oppressed, and strangely glamorous (damn you, Che Guevara!). More posts to come, hopefully.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Went to the Tibet Day Festival with Canadian Dave yesterday at the Ft Mason center (which is basically a glorified warehouse space). That made a lot of sense because the festival itself was basically a glorified get together for the Bay Area Tibet Society. It was a fairly amateur affair with long winded, unnecessary speeches by overly earnest people (including a white guy who looked like he'd dressed up as Obi-wan Kenobi to stand in line for the next Star Wars film).Despite all this I tried to be open minded, which was good because there were some real cultural gems to be discovered.

I'm secretly envious/proud of kids who go to great lengths to learn the songs and dances of their native lands when abroad. Listening to the earnest young quartet on stage, I had the sudden realization thatTibetan traditional music sounds a lot like Sudanese traditional music. The two singers were a comedic dream pair - the boy thin and bespectacled and serious, the girl large and boisterous and open. The two musicians accompanying them played lute-like stringed instruments, playing pressed together near an open microphone like George Harrison and John Lennon (alternately they also looked like the two guitarists for 80's power balladeers Heart)

The strange familiarity was increased when I went out back to eat momos (beef and veggie dumplings, delicious!) and drink milk tea. The tea was more milk than tea and hot with a spicy aroma to it. It reminded me of the tea one gets at the bus stops and early markets of Khartoum. My mind was cast back so far I nearly got whiplash. It was odd in juxtaposition to the rosy-cheeked, burnished bronze children running around.

Fortunately I wasn't the most out of place person there that day.There was a Benedictine monk sitting two seats to the left of a Tibetan Buddhist monk in front of me. Black robe (left) - saffron robe (right) it was a bizarre sort of comparison. Surreal.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Turkey Day is here, Charlie Brown, and your old pal (me) is here in not-so-sunny Portland, OR, at the house of my buddy, Phat Munkay and her husband, Papi, and their dog Pico (named for the text editor - yes it's a house of nerds). The smooth jazz is playing, the post-turkey nap has been taken, and lots of pie was consumed. It has been a successful day by all measures. I haven't ever been to Portland before and I haven't been disappointed in what I've seen so far (or rather what I could see what with all the fog and drizzle).

It's been cold and despite my attempts at organization I managed to leave my warm clothes at home, arriving here with one sweater and one long sleeved shirt and a mess of t-shirts and shorts. I had checked the weather online before packing but for some reason had only been concerned with whether or not it was going to rain. It slipped my mind to check the temperatures at all, and so I was a bit surprised to see my breath when I was waiting to be picked up on the curb at PDX. Not a smart move.

The time has been good so far though, with much laughter and eating and even a short, wet walk around the neighborhood. Oregon has some interesting local flora, some of which I had never seen before. It took me a while to acclimate myself to the fact that there was no pervasive smell of urine everywhere. Today was mostly a home day though, and I expect to get out and about tomorrow for some real exploring.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I was talking to my Dad the other day and he mentioned that my little sister has become a minor celebrity in Shanghai.

aside: I should preface this by saying that she had called me the other day to tell me that her language teacher had put her name forward for a small role on a popular daily soap opera. She was supposed to play the role of the new foreign wife. After getting over the shock of seeing an actual black person in their studio, the producers gave her the job.

She has since appeared in only one episode, but apparently to a modest viewership of roughly 300 million people. Since the show she's been accosted on the street by erstwhile fans many times and was even told (by no less personage than a university professor) that she hoped my sister's issues with her mother in law would soon come to an end. It's another example of the strange disparities between the modern image of China and the essentially simple nature of it's population. Still it's amazing to think of the modest viewership of my sister's show as being the equivalent of every man, woman and child in the United States.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My folks spent last Saturday in Sedona and since I was around this weekend, they decided to go again. We got up early and then squandered our lead on the Labor Day traffic. We also lost our bid to get to the red rocks before the weather turned as had been predicted in the "news". Well we went anyway, with visions of sliding down rocks into freezing cold pools. Armed with a bag full of sandwiches and fruit, and no towels, we made it by about lunchtime and made a beeline for the outskirts of town.

The path down to the water was well worn but rocky, and as usual we were poorly prepared. With my mother in a long skirt and flip flops, we were moving fairly slow. This made us an easy target for the dark clouds that were shifting over the buttes and started making their intentions clear. The first drops were cold but small and sharp, like tiny daggers; these spies were followed by warm, bucket sized battalions of raindrops. The sparse leaves on the trees and the few trees left us exposed and ultimately drenched. Still it was really pleasant and I felt quite free as I cowered under a pine tree waiting for the weather to clear up enough to head down to the bottom of the canyon.

Continue reading "Slide." »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just a quick update, my first night in Barcelona was ok except that apparently my bags are lost to the world. Upon arrival in London I'd had my first indication that something could be wrong when the Iberia folks couldn't check my bag (already checked through in San Fran) with me due to the fact that the baggage check was misprinted rendering the numbers unreadable. This is of course a tragic situation since it means I have to buy clothes to work in at least today before I head in to the office. Hopefully my bag will be delivered by the weekend, but we'll see.

In the meantime the hotel is in a strange area. The hotel itself is quite nice and very modern but for some reason it is nestled in among "wirrash" and other sorts of warehouses. I got in rather late due to my late connection through Heathrow so I didn't get to see much other than the various mechanics' workshops on my way from the metro station. I did get the chance to eat at a small cafe which was open (at midnight!) nearby and that seemed to be in a shopping area so who knows maybe the hotel is on some sort of boundary. Anyway I am going to see if I can get a phone really cheaply today (with the Euro where it is I am asking for a lot!) and also go buy at least one shirt and some socks or something to tide me over till at least the weekend - I guess I am lucky! Since I am trying to do a little traveling on the weekend this forces me to travel so lightly that all I have is my laptop and my toothbrush :)

UPDATE: the bag has been found and delivered ahead of me to the wedding location, leaving me free to roam the city with just a backpack!

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

lofatmo note: my Dad does this when he travels. He gets a feel for a place and immediately feels the need to share it (familiar?). Anyway, he's currently visiting my sister in Shanghai and I wrote this. I thought you might all be interested.

“ EYELESS “ IN SHANGHAI !

Today, walking alone around our neighborhood in Shanghai, I discovered that I am virtually deaf, dumb, blind, and completely illiterate! This, let me tell you, is extremely frustrating if you are fortunate (or unfortunate) not to have experienced being deaf, dumb or blind…or illiterate.

Imagine being in the middle of the cacophony of a Chinese city, ”seeing” people talking, arguing, fighting, shouting in that unmistakable 3rd world fashion, but being unable to “hear” and understand what they say ! They try to speak s-l-o-w-l-y (when and if they address you), as one does when speaking to a child or a retard, and still you do not have a clue. And I must be dumb because the maximum I can do is utter monosyllabic noises, shake my head, gesticulate with my hands and, when all this does not help, grin like a village fool. If they address me (and they wouldn’t, being too busy ogling at this alien from Planet of the Apes), or if I want to utter the sort of words that one almost involuntarily utters hundreds of times daily (sorry, hello, thanks, woops!), nothing comes out of my mouth. These words, in several languages (except Chinese) jostle to come out, but nothing does and I end up, again, gaping like an imbecile. Sometimes “ish-shi”, the most versatile Amharic word (which happens to sound Chinese) comes out but sounding no less gibberish than any other word I say in whatever language that I speak or do not speak.

What is really frustrating is that, after so many years of schooling (primary, secondary, university, post-graduate) and the thousands of books I read, I find that in Shanghai, I am illiterate. It is just difficult to believe or accept that I can not decipher a single word, a single character in Chinese, even the most basic: here, there, no, yes, out, in, where, when, how much, and others. There are all those signs, some in giant “letters” in shouting yellow on red, that adorn all buildings that could be saying Workers of the World Unite! (or its equivalent in these days), or Foreigners Out!, or Free Lunch!, or any other important or banal message, and I have no way of reading it if my own life depended on that. The city is full of gated compounds with uniformed guards and elaborate signs that could be saying Foreigners are not allowed to walk in front of this compound! , or Mine Field Ahead!, or Come in and Have a Free Apartment! , or Beware of the Cute Dog!, or whatever these signs announce to everybody except me. What makes my situation worse when it comes to guessing what signs say, is that most shops in Shanghai are not easily identified by the way they look. They all have a spacious front hall that seem to proclaim them to be restaurants, massage parlours, banks, brothels, gentleman clubs, tattoo joints, or whatever. The only establishments that are clearly and easily identified are bicycle repair shops (in abundance for obvious reasons), and beauty and hair saloons (also now in abundance as a sign of the new prosperity and the new globalized taste that propels everybody to want to be, and look like “them”: white! No wonder that most TV commercials promote using beauty products that make skin “fairer” and hair longer and shinier, and you do not have to speak Chinese to get these messages).

I am now even wondering whether all my other senses have been disabled. I pride myself on having a very keen sense of smell. I could walk any city street elsewhere, blindfolded, and still be able to distinguish smells wafting from various establishments: restaurants, corner shops, barber shop, carpenter workshop, mechanics workshop, bakery, etc. In Shanghai, my nose seems to have lost its “memory”. There is no smell I can recognize or relate to anything I know. There is only that pungent but unfamiliar smell of rotting, fermenting vegetables mixed with the smell of fish and other hideous smells.

However, what makes me really frustrated is not being able to communicate, to make contact and engage in small talk with the hordes of old men and women (about half the population of China) and young children (very rare). I could see in the old folks faces, in their wrinkles and their smiley little beady eyes that they also yearn to make contact and engage in the small talk passengers on long train journeys in developing countries are likely to engage in. I, too, am dying to ask them hundreds of petty and not so petty questions : what do they think about rice prices and the cost of living in general compared to bygone days ; about the good (or bad) old days; about the cultural revolution; whether they were born on farms or in small village and in which province; whether they go back to these village ; whether they are nostalgic for the old China they knew or alarmed at the changes China is experiencing with its new wealth; are they annoyed and worried by the shouting billboards and loud TV commercials; whether they have sons and daughters and grand children and if they see them; are they annoyed by the materialism of the new generations; what do they do with their time and whether they are bored stiff; are they following the news of far away places like my country and other countries…..endless questions that storm in my brain and stay there. And I manage only to utter a guttural sound, grin, and nod my head in a friendly way, trying to convey in that little nod the torrents of questions and yearning and curiosity that crowd my mind. And I discover once more how lonely and cut-off deaf, dumb persons must feel in the company of “normal” people.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When the good folks at Faceless Corporation talk, I listen. And when they tell me that they need to be entertained with tales of my travels - or rather that the need things to read when they're in the factory at 1a - I oblige. First of all, check out this quick shot from back home.

I returned on the 14th from the Sudan, having spent 11 exhausting days going from house to house, greeting, catching up, paying condolences and generally being the hometown boy made good. Being the eldest son of the eldest son is not an easy job, but you do what you can. I'd tell you all the things I did but it's not as interesting to the outside observer. To quote a conversation with a friend prior to the trip:

Friend: So are you going to do any touristy stuff while you're there?
Me: Are you crazy? There's no touristy stuff to do in Sudan - you just visit people's homes and be with your family and wander from wedding to funeral to wedding.

Continue reading "By Popular Demand ..." »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Well it's the end of another year in the life of the man who would be king, or president, or perhaps just alderman. I'd like to take this moment to say thanks to the folks who kept me going and who helped me retain my sanity. I'm doing this early since I will in fact be going to the Sudan for the new year, only to return sometime in 2007. No blogging this time I'm afraid, as I have quite a bit to take care of there. Looking forward to seeing/hearing/remotely sensing you all in the new year.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is only technically under travel since it occurred on the day I returned from Italy and on the way back from the airport. The incident encapsulates my life in SF to date:

The good doctor picked me up from the airport, where I was stir crazy and stiff from the 700 hours spent in the middle seat at the back of a 747. We dragged my belongings to the car and made it back into the city by noon. As we rolled down my street, I noticed a hunched figure outside my house. This was no big surprise as my house has some sort of homeless-person cat-nip on it. As we got closer it could make out that it was two figures, one seated on top of the other and I felt kind of happy for the homeless person, as he had a friend now, and gave it no more thought. Just then Dr Germ says, "Are those two shagging?" Of course they weren't, I mean it was noon on a Wednesday, no one would have public sex at a time like this.

At this point I should describe the couple in question. The man was in his mid to late twenties, with a bubble jacket and baggy jeans on. He was what might be described as a "thug" in the current vernacular. The woman was, I'd say, between 30 and about 90. She had seen "better days" and the whole situation made me think that this was a "business transaction".

Another look confirmed that the doctor was, in fact, right. The man was hastily pulling his jacket around to cover up the woman, who looked somewhat perturbed (who wouldn't be?). They then shifted slightly, as though to imply that they were having a serious conversation about US agricultural policy and the future of subsidies for soy farmers. At no point did it look like they were about to drop the pretense and perhaps pull up their trousers. The good doctor wanted to pull further forward on our street to park despite the fact that there was a space right in front of my house (and consequently in front of the two agricultural policy buffs). I was immediately outraged and demanded she stop in front of the house. I had had a long trip and I wasn't about to show some sensitivity to the privacy of the two people engaged in a sex act outside MY house. So I got out and began to pull my luggage out of the car. A glance in their direction further solidified my "business transaction" theory, as the woman seemed discomfited and the man had a resolute look on his face that seemed to say, "dammit, I paid for at least another 8 minutes and I'm not stopping now!" Mind you this is in the middle of the street, in the middle of the week in broad daylight.

Welcome back to San Francisco.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

An early rise and I was on a train for Venice. It was one of those trains that one sees in the movies quite frequently with compartments on one side with a corridor on the other side of the car. I was secretly delighted, despite the dinginess of the rail car, and wondered if there would be a murder or some of the other excitement that is common to these sorts of rail cars. Unfortunately there were no unusual deaths on the train that required me and a few intrepid travelers to solve it before we got to our final stop in Ferrara, and I finished a rather poorly written novel (you'll pay for that Mr Excitement, mark my words).

We approached Venice, rolling more slowly through the land part of Venice, which seemed unremarkable, when I suddenly was overcome with a lot of trepidation. What the hell was I doing? Venice had no roads for God's sakes! I could drown! How would I get to my hotel? The whole thing was multiplied when I caught sight of the water. Panic! Somehow I muddled through and found myself standing by the Grand Canal, in some disbelief that I was even there.

Continue reading ""His Ducal Signet Ring!"" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Ravenna, the jewel of the western Adriatic and the heir to so many faded glories. It took rather longer to get here than I had anticipated, due to a delay of the trains in Florence and another one in Bologna (my bologna has a first name ...). Upon arriving, I was first struck by the heat - with a dull thwack, it hit me as I stepped out of the train station. I also managed to get myself lost ensuring that by the time I got to the hotel I was shvitzing copiously through my tshirt. This was to bode ill...

Continue reading "Echoes of Byzantium" »

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The thing about the Leaning Tower is that it's not as big as you'd think it would be. This disparity in perception was the same when seeing Michelangelo's David which is much bigger than one imagines it to be. The tower's angle is quite dramatic which regrettably makes it quite easy for any of one of the many tourists around it to take quite original snapshots of people either pushing the tower over or propping it up (I frequently found myself wiping tears from my eyes from all the laughter). You still have to admire the fact that it hadn't toppled over till the foundations were reinforced in the 20th century.

Pisa itself is quite small and I was surprised at how quickly I was able to get to to the tower from the train station in the south of the city. I wandered around and took in the other sights in the Piazza del Miracolo, the cathedral and baptistry. The interiors are quite beautiful, having been renovated during the Medici rule of Pisa. There is a warmth and soft fragrance in the cathedral which contrasts with the dank, cold of the gothic cathedrals of Northern Europe that I've been to. That made the otherwise humdrum experience of the visit just a little nicer. Overall though Pisa is no great shakes. How can they neglect to even name a single piazza after Galileo? Not that, not a monument, not his old house, not the location of any of the experiments - it's rather depressing.

So I got back on a train and headed back to Florence. The weather was conducive to sitting quietly on a train headed east. It had been raining on and off since the wee hours when we had so much hail that it actually woke me up in my hotel room. By the time I got to the train station and out towards my hotel it was raining so hard that I was soaked by the time I got back to the hotel. More's the reason to stay in tonight I think.

This has given me some time to ponder why I've been so impatient or aggravated during my time here, as well as the odd sense of deja vu. It's Spike Milligan's fault. Reading his war memoirs (WWII) - in which many events occur in Italy as the Allied Army made it's way into Italy and then up the peninsula even as Milligan stayed back, a victim of shell shock - gave me an early impression of the peninsula. But his visits to the Uffizi and Pitti, as well as the Amalfi coast, took place in the ebbing tide of a world war and you can bet there weren't lines upon lines at the time. I'm not sure I wouldn't trade experiences although truth to be told, seeing these places in the immediate shadow of a war may not be the best option. Anyway Spike, I hope you're satisfied.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8/11/06 Florence

The Leonardo exhibit reminded me that I am in fact a rather large nerd and that I needed to satisfy that side of myself. So I decided (thanks Blankie) to go to the Museum of the History of Science. Tucked away behind the Uffizi on the Arno, it is the bucktoothed younger sister of the Florentine museums - not pretty, but great personality.

Continue reading "My Roots" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8/10/06 Florence

Well despite my idea about leaving Florence, I decided to stay a few days more. Unfortunately that means leaving my cushy hotel by the station and had to move to the rather coincidentally named Arizona Hotel. It's on the other side of town and the walk, situated in the middle of what I can only imagine is the Jewish quarter of Florence. That's the only reason for the disproportionate number of Lubavitcher Jews all over the place, the chabad and of course the rather large synagogue right next door. Also I'm not sure where else a place like "Ruth's Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant" could be in a place like Florence.

I'll head to Pisa for a day trip and then to Ravenna before I head off to Venice to wrap up my Italian tour. The best part of that is that I will actually get to cross the Rubicon! I've always wanted to do that.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8/9/06 Florence

Today was a brutal day of beauty with grueling forays into onto the steeper slopes of the Arts. I had originally intended to wake up early and make it out to the museums prior to the barbarian hordes, but that didn't happen as I'm sure you can imagine. When I arrived at the Uffizi at 10ish the lines curved around the courtyard to the other side such that the head and tail of the line were roughly even. I debated getting into the line but just then several groups left the line in despair and it moved forward quite a bit, which I took as a sign. I'm not sure who sent the sign but I spent some 2.5 hours in the line building up the image of the Uffizi in my mind. This was a bad move because I was thinking something along the lines of the Louvre times pi squared, and instead I got a lot less ... this was somewhat repeated at the Galleria dell' Accademia except for a shorter wait but in the sun.

Continue reading "The Renaissance in a Day" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Florence 244p

I arrived in Florence at 11 or so, tired from having had to wake up early for my train. Still it meant a long (and hopefully productive) first day in the city, which would be necessary since the city has a density of attractions rivaled only by the density of black currants in puddings. Unfortunately my hotel's check in time was 2p, so I left my bag with them and started to tramp around the city. I won't tell you about the attractions themselves, as it is information you can pick up in any guidebook, but mostly write about my impressions such as they are.

Continue reading "Crossing the Arno" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8/8/06 8:25a en route to Florence

The last three days have gone by so quickly that I have not had time to set anything down, which means you guys can forget about picturesque descriptions of the local waste paper baskets.

Continue reading "A Wedding, a Party and a Trip" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

8/4/06 10:45p Viterbo

I stopped the last entry due to sheer exhaustion although the day hadn't really ended after our return from Rome. After a quick clean up I dressed again and went to the bachelor night. The groom showed up late to my hotel to pick me up on the way up to the restaurant, dressed in a German national team soccer jersey and shorts. The quizzical look on my face lead him to explain that he'd been told to put on this outfit for purposes of the party which lead me to wonder if there would be a stripper dressed as a referee or whether there would be some head butting later in the evening, but I was told that there no strippers or prostitutes at the bachelor night by agreement of the bride and groom. So I dodged a bullet there. The specific reason he had that jersey on was that without Germany, there would be no wedding, since the bride is German.

Continue reading "The Old Town" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8/5/06 1p Viterbo

An interesting side note to my stay here is my observation of the large amount of graffiti everywhere. I suppose this shouldn't be too much of a shock, since the word itself is Italian and the practice dates back to the Roman era. It runs the range between Carlo é Julia Siempre to large murals of stylized mermaids on the sides of the Rome metro. It certainly seems more interesting than the stuff I've been seeing in San Francisco and its surroundings, although I have seen a disturbing number of swastikas all over the place. It's puzzling as they are extremely badly done, sometimes with the arms of the cross pointing in the opposite direction. I wasn't sure whether to feel threatened or just confused and settled for confused. While there are many neo-fascist movements brewing in Europe, I'm not sure if I should be afraid of one that doesn't know whether to be afraid of one that doesn't know clockwise from anti-clockwise.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 4:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

8/3/06 8:15p Viterbo

Went to Rome today, and was prepared for the best and the worst. What I found of course was dirt, much like any other city. It was also choked with tourists, perhaps not like any other city, but similar enough. Rome was an afterthought of this trip and luckily for me, the bridge and groom had organized this excursion for all their friends, so there would be no real need for a lot of planning on my part.

Continue reading "La Vita Romana" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Viterbo, 8/2/06 11:08 PM

Italy has been a whirlwind of sensations that have me turned topsy turvy. From the first descent over the Roman landscape I was struck with the sensation that nothing had changed in the preceding two thousand years. There were still small farms dotting the landscape between the hills and the Mediterranean and by and large they seemed to be growing grapes and olives. The only difference of course is the motorcars on the roads, although the roads themselves may have been paved on top of Roman ones.

Continue reading "Ciao, Leonardo" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

30000 feet above the earth and here I meet the Muse and become a member of the literary mile-high club. Before me are the remains of my meal (more on that later) and beside me a rather morose middle-aged Asian fellow who is the perfect seatmate (completely silent). Outside are cloud drifts that look like the Gobi on a good day with the dark shadow of the land somewhere below us, and I am on the worst 747 I've been on this millenium. I am literally in the last seat, huddled with my silent friend just to the right of the toilets.

Continue reading "Via Germania" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My first major vacation of my adult life (as defined by the fact that I have a "job") is rapidly approaching, and I am filled with a sense of anticipation. The anticipation is shot through with outright fear - fear, I tell you! Now, usually I am not even remotely worried about travel because quite frankly, there's very little that can happen that can't be remedied. But before this trip I've been inundated with tales of Italian perils. Thankfully none of it is of the "losing a kidney and waking up in a bathtub full of ice" variety but it has been rather uniformly bleak. Mostly they've been warnings about keeping an eye out for pickpockets. Having lived in Egypt for several years I am not entirely unfamiliar with this sort of thing, but it's been awhile since it was a concern for me and with all these voices telling me to be careful I am a little worried. It doesn't help that I don't speak the langauge at all, mind you, but with this trusty phrase book I'm bound to be ok. Right?

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a heads up, I will be in Bella Italia in August for Matteo's wedding. Tickets are bought and I can hardly contain myself. If I don't watch out I'll start packing now! Any recommendations for place to eat/sleep/see/etc? I'd better go practice Vespa riding and saying "Ciao!".

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

During my mother's visit to see me over Christmas and New Years she gathered a large number of photographs (I'm the family archivist, and the guardian of the family photos) and bought a small library's worth of photo albums to keep her occupied. During this trip to Phoenix, my mother pulled out a carry-all full of what appeared to be bricks. Upon further inspection I saw that she had proceeded to fill something like eight or so albums with photos.

Continue reading "The Anals of National Security" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've made a bad habit recently of travelling in the dead of night, like a fugitive. In some ways this is very convenient, since it means that you spend time that you would probably not be actually doing stuff at your destination or at home. The bad thing is that you are completely knackered from being up so late to even get to the plane, and of course there is the joy of neck and back stiffness when you arrive, coupled with the worst kind of puppy breath (yes, the kind that involves a puppy that's got into the compost heap, and has recently discovered the joys of eating his own poop. That kind). It's with this in mind that I was on a plane again, this time headed to Minneapolis to meet my family.

Continue reading "Minnesota? Ya Sure You Betcha" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The thing that I had initially been told about Pittsburgh was that it was a good place to eat. Being the trencherman that I am, I took this as a challenge. Truth to be told I was mostly excited since, as we all know, there is no real good food west of the Mississippi. It's with that in mind that I pumped friends and acquaintances for information about the best eats in Pittsburgh, and came up with the name "Primanti Brothers".

Continue reading "The Man from NSBE: Gourmet Notes" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 9:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The sky in Pittsburgh is faded like jeans that have been washed too many times. The blues are not as vibrant as they are in the west (maybe the only thing that is remarkable about that part of the country, and yes I am biased) and the sky itself seems constrained like a fat man stuck in an elevator. This doesn't stop me from looking upwards, though mostly at the old buildings that are all over downtown. I may have already mentioned this but I was quite taken by the style of the buildings in the downtown area. They are results of that curious period in American construction that gave us exposed brick with sandstone facades. It's all WWII era construction with hand painted advertising on the broad sides of the buildings, reminiscent of the NY of my youth but before the decline. In keeping with the introspection of this week, the whole thing has me regretting not becoming an architect.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Pittsburgh is surprisingly pleasant, and I mean that in as nice a way as such a comment can sound. The weather has been lovely (low 60's and sunny) and the proximity to the hotel is an added benefit since it means I can walk to and from the convention center. This is a great advantage because on day 1 I realized there was nothing but registration and some opening ceremonies and so I decided to wander back to the hotel and take a nap before the team dinner with the other representatives of Faceless Corporation.

I woke up from the sleep with hypothermia from being so high up on my bed. The air was so hot mainly because hot air rises and for some reason the heat in the hotel has been turned up to near Saharan levels. In short, I needed a drink. And so I rolled out of bed, cleaned myself up and downed half a gallon of water before calling one of my coworkers and meeting in the lobby to walk down to the restaurant. The dinner was extremely pleasant as I was seated by a particularly engaging manager, and I discovered what other folks of color (as we are variously known) are doing at Faceless Corp. By the end of the night I felt like a part of something good.

That feeling extended into this morning when I woke up, dressed to impress and went to the convention center only to be greeted by a buddy from graduate school who now works for IBM in Tucson AZ. We reminisced and shot the breeze, wandering around the corporate exhibits watching fresh faced and nervous young folks crusing the aisles looking for swag and for jobs. Not too different from SPIE except with an air of youthful desperation. It wasn't long ago that I felt the same pangs and it's a wonder what several months yoked to the harness of a large corporate slave-cart will do. So I smiled and looked at the exhibits and finally went up to the professional development workshops.

Now if you haven't guessed it already, I am a cynic. I don't beleive in much, certainly not the sort of mumbo jumbo frequently espoused in the corporate setting. Yet I was impressed with the messages I was hearing in the workshops. They were positive and and accessible, warm and determined. I was particularly taken by the role of faith in all the presenters lives. But it was, by and large, not that odious self-righteous proclaiming so much as it was a natural extension of their lives. It certainly had me re-evaluating the role of my faith in my own life. Frankly I've been wayward lately - and I don't mean because of the wild behavior, the booze and the women. It's been really due to my own relation with God in my head. Food for thought.

The other striking thing that I noticed was the presence of the military. They were everywhere, and I don't just mean all the cadets (I foolishly forgot that West Point had to have an engineering program if only civil), but the recruiters. It's not enough to have people in the ROTC making their futures in the military after college but they're looking to enlist engineers who have managed to escape their lures thus far. At the Golden Torch Awards ceremony which honored scholarship awardees, former members and current officers there was a table that looked like it had been lifted lock, stock and barrel from a state dinner. Gleaming patent leather and campaign ribbons galore, with crew cut frames made the whole picture complete.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Being one of three black engineers at Faceless Corporation, I was recently asked if I would like to take the opportunity to represent the company at the National Society of Black Engineers national conference in Pittsburgh. Ever in search of a junket and a way to break up the deadly monotony of the job, I agreed. After all this is a great opportunity to get to know some of my co-workers, network with other engineers and maybe also learn something - Heaven forbid!

Continue reading "The Man from NSBE: Pittsburgh" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

More dispatches from my Dad in Djibouti (say it with me kids: Djibouti!)

Continue reading "Djibouti Dispatches" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As of yesterday, I have an apartment in San Francisco. I won't be moving up there proper till the middle of the month, most likely. In the meantime I'll be moving my belongings up there little by little and trying to arrange the place ahead of time (unlike my usual methodology of boxing everything up, moving it in and then sleeping on boxes till the chiropractic bills become too steep). This whole thing marks a shift in my life here in sunny (actually, rainy, right now) California and I'm both dreading and looking forward to it. Wish me luck.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

An excerpt from my Dad's obervations on his recent trip to the aforementioned country. When I was a kid I would laugh and laugh and laugh at the mention of it. I was snickering this time for different reasons.

Continue reading "Say it: "Djibouti"" »

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

12/31/2004 5:17AM (7:17AM Boston)

As some of you already know, my flight got into Boston late last night, and I missed my connection to NYC. Rather than getting upset about the whole thing and the fact that I hadn't had any more than an hour or so of sleep for the past 22 hours, I took it all in stride and called my good friend Ryan (ptooi!). After arranging for a morning flight to JFK, I started the long trudge to Alewife station where he would be meeting me, in his lady's jalopy. Trying to lug a 60 lb. bag through the Boston underground transportation is similar to dragging a screaming 8 year old through a toy store at Christmas time. Add a second bag of clothes and a book bag, and you have the recipe for an old school Lo Fat Mo slapstick episode. It was worth it though, since I hadn't seen Ryan in almost three years, and we ended up staying up all night talking and playing video games. City of Heroes is a uniquely comical experience when you've had no sleep in several days and are adding your own MST3K type commentary and dialogue.

My flight is supposed to take off at 9a or so, so I had to be at Logan at 7a, which meant that I ended up leaving Arlington at 6a. So no sleep for me. I am currently loopy, but inspired, and so cheerful that I am beginning to worry for my sanity. I don't know how hard I will crash, but I think that it won't be pretty when the time comes. The inspiration comes in the form of certain clear impressions of my vacation:

- walking in to find my old man drinking a tumbler of scotch, listening to Mozart
- waking up to the sounds Chopin wafting through the house like a sweet fragrance
- shopping in the Mercato in Addis Ababa. The Mercato is a mix between an Arabic souk, an Indian bazaar, and the edge of chaos
- having doors opened for me, and overall living the life of a young prince (not the artist)
- the poorest people in the world, with the most disturbing deformities sitting in front of a church
- grown, able-bodied men begging in the Khartoum industrial zone
- tears welling in my eyes at the sight of my young cousins all grown up
- praying in a mosque with my cousin who is the muezzin of that mosque
- answering the question "So what is the condition of Muslims in America these days?"
- hearing the words "you sure do look like your father," uttered a million times
- the sight of Khartoum at night from the air, the broad black band of the Blue and White Niles converging in Khartoum
- the sight of my college friends with their wives and children
- the realization that this may be the last long vacation I will have till the day I retire

The ideal vacation is not just relaxing but also enlightening. Like all the important things in life, you learn something important things about yourself just being there. It remains to be seen what that lesson will be articulated as for me, but I am a better man for it, I can tell you that for sure.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 5:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FINAL THOUGHTS ON ETHIOPIA
12/30/2004 4:47AM

I'm somewhere over the Alps right now, having left Addis Ababa at 7am. The Alps are really fantastic from this height, but I am not in the mood to really enjoy them. My leave-taking was not as tearful as it was with my mother in Khartoum, but I am still disappointed. I wanted to spend more time with my old man, and as expected my gadding about the African continent was at the expense of my time with Dad. I also came to the rather stunning realization that for the foreseeable future I won't be getting any really long vacations, so I'll have to make some pretty tough choices about where I spend that limited vacation time.

But I don't want to sound maudlin. I just wanted to do for Addis what I did for Khartoum, so without further ado, my final thoughts on Ethiopia:

- Amharic is an interesting language. As a semitic language I thought I'd be able to understand it fairly quickly, but there are just too many idiosyncrasies to it that I don't get. For instance they use some explosive consonants. Their t's and g's are explosive, and pop up quite often in regular speech. Imagine the X!hosa people with more options. They also have a tendency to insert short gasps into their speech. The gasps are used to indicate comprehension. Instead of an expulsion of air as in "uh-huh", there's a rapid intake of air: "gasp!" The weird part of it is that it's infectious. Even the stereotypically named Jacques Dubois does it, though his thirty years of marriage to an Ethiopian woman may go some ways towards explaining that. It doesn't, however, explain why the Finns in town all do it too.

- Little kids in Addis Ababa fall into two broad categories: modern or traditional. I've noticed that the traditional kids have some very strange haircuts. I was riding through town when I noticed a kid with half his head shaved. I quickly discarded the possibility that he was in some prog-rock band, but could find no other explanation. It was made more mystifying when I saw another little kid with her head shaved except for a little circle at her forelock, I finally asked around and discovered that it's a traditional practice to ward off the evil eye from little kids. This practice is similar to one that one was prevalent in the Sudan when my father's generation were children. The Ethiopians also add another twist: they tattoo the faces of particularly beautiful young women, also in order to ward off the evil eye. The tattoos incorporate a cross on the forehead and typically also include a chain of small crosses along the woman's jaw line and then down her throat. The overall effect is quite striking, and I wish I had taken a picture of one of these women to illustrate. Interestingly, in the Sudan a counterpart to this practice exists, wherein the woman's lower lip is tattooed. My grandmother's generation is the last generation of Sudanese women to sport that particular look.

- Ethiopians have a strangely intimate relationship with black folks outside of Africa. Within Africa they hold themselves aloof, apart from the rest of the continent because of their ancient civilization and their pretension to being the heirs of the throne of Solomon (yes, as in King Solomon of the baby splitting and the Old Testament). Yet they feel a strong affinity to the rest of the black diaspora. Ads for satellite movie channels show black stars. The country seems to be united behind the English Premier League Club, Arsenal, primarily due to the predominance of black players on their roster. Don't even get me started on the relationship between Ethiopia and Jamaica. The capital is flooded with dreadlocked Rastafarians, and every year a huge reggae festival is held on Bob Marley's birthday.

There's more but for some reason, from the moment I got onto the plane I've been blocked. For now I guess the only thing to mention is the short stop on the tarmac in Alexandria Egypt on the way to London. We landed at Borg AlArab air base, made famous by it's inability to get a single plane in the air during the 1967 Six Day War. Upon touch down I noted the series of hardened camouflaged hangars scattered around near the landing strip. It's always eerie to be near the scene of an infamous historical event.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 4:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/26/2004 9:27AM (7:27PM Khartoum)

This is a tough topic for me, because as the minutes tick away, I am torn between getting my final thoughts down on "paper" and gathering my strength for the last few days in Addis Ababa. It's also tough because there's so much I wanted to write about that I've either forgotten about, or have lost the fire of inspiration. So you'll excuse me if this next part is a little disjointed:

- The Sudan has changed a lot and a good example, for me, is the proliferation of eateries and watering holes. While I've discussed restaurants and fast food joints, I didn't really get the chance to talk about cafes, which have also sprouted in Khartoum like weeds. Some of them are quite swanky, and it is easy to forget where you are. My newlywed cousin had been on and on about going to a place called Parliament Cafe, which is found (of course) on Parliament Street in downtown Khartoum . We never seemed to get there, and eventually I ended up going with his brother and sister, and another cousin of ours. Parliament Cafe is situated on the roof of a business center, and bordered by the tall walls of the surrounding buildings. The result is like being in the crater of a volcano. There is a framed rectangle of sky, and the night I was there, I could see the moon clearly.

The entrance to the cafe's small courtyard is done up in an ancient Egyptian style with bas relief figures along the northern wall. The floor is lined with smooth stones from the river, fanning out from the stairs to the doors of the cafe. The cafe is dimly-lit, moodily-lit even, with a dark wood interior and the sort of furniture one usually sees in Ikea showrooms. A large plasma screen television sits up next to the bar playing an Arabic music video channel. Scattered around the room were various couples talking to each other in soft tones, obviously considering themselves the creme de la creme of Sudanese society. The problem of course is that the Sudanese are terrible at service, and so we ended up waiting for a good half hour before a server got to our table. There is a long road ahead before Sudan becomes a tourist wonderland.

- Part of the colonial legacy of the Sudan is the existence of social clubs, typically based on nationality or religion. The Armenian Club, the Syrian Club, the Greek Club, the German Club, the Sudan Club (British nationals only, the presumptuous bastards), the American Club, the Nubian Club, the Coptic Club, and the Catholic Club. All of those had fairly extensive grounds and a variety of athletic and social facilities. We filthy locals were typically not allowed in without a "sponsor", sort of like trying to get a visa into another country but with a little less paperwork. Lately of course, things have changed. The original communities that had established these social clubs have long since dwindled away, and the rules have long since slackened, so I found myself at the Deutcher Sudan Verein (German Club) one night, drinking gin and tonics, and listening to a Soca music. It's strange to see alcohol in the Sudan (nominally a Muslim country), but you know me, I roll with the punches.

I went to the German Club with a friend of mine who kept referring to me as her "childhood friend", and a couple of her colleagues. I certainly didn't expect to see anyone there that I knew. I have a theory though, that I like to call the "small world" theory. In short, my theory is that the world is a really small place, and that depending on the type of person you are and the circles you travel in you are quite likely to run into people you know in the most unlikely places. And so I did. I ran into a guy I went to high school with, and another girl who I've known since childhood along with her husband. What kind of a small world do we live in where you can run into people you know in such disparate places?

- The Sudan is a great test bed for the "small world" theory, especially the less benign aspect of it. In the Sudan you are pretty much related to almost anyone. The familial links between people are not always obvious, but they're there and more intricate than one would imagine. For instance, I am related to members of the current government, and members of the opposition. More importantly, they are both related to each other even more closely than I am related to them. Considering how outspoken I am, you can see that this could pose a problem or two (or more). So I refrain from talking politics, and in the Sudan, religion - at least with my two uncles. That doesn't automatically stop trouble from popping up. In a recent visit, the uncle who was in the inner circle of the current government was holding forth on the differences between the Ethiopian and Sudanese national characters. He made a comment about how Ethiopians are technically proficient at everything they do: if they're barbers, they're great barbers; if they're mechanics, they are great mechanics; if they're diplomats, they excel at languages and the business of diplomacy. At that point I had to leave the room.

If there's one thing I know for sure it's that the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was composed, for the most part, of dedicated professionals who excelled in their task - up until 1989 that is. In 1989 a coup installed this current government and they set about purging the foreign ministry (among other venerable Sudanese institutions) of career diplomats. They bullied, humiliated, coerced or directly removed the men and women who made the ministry so efficient, replacing them with party apparatchiks who used the ministry to travel around on the government dime, living it up and making things up as they went along. These are the people who are diplomats with no language skills, and even less diplomatic acumen.

For him to say what he said, in a room where he had to know there were people that knew better just staggered me. The nature of family ties in the Sudan prevented me from saying anything so I just got up and left the room to fume on my own. The man's arrogance and hypocrisy is hard to imagine outside of a caricature. I've been butting heads with him since high school and it hasn't gotten any easier. Being an adult means having to be diplomatic, though, and I am nothing if not a dutiful son.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/25/2004 2:51AM (12:51PM Khartoum)

The last hours in Khartoum are always a mad dash towards the finish line, which is tomorrow at 9p, when my flight leaves for Addis Ababa again. I can barely remember what I need to do, let alone what I want to do. The problem with the Sudan (if you can call it a problem) is that you are surrounded by people who love you and want to be with you, sit with you, talk to you, eat with you, and so on. Everyone wants their moment in the sun, and time is your biggest enemy, especially when you consider that Khartoum traffic is horrendous. The center of Khartoum has not been expanded since the British built it in the late 19th century. All the ministries are there, as are all the municipal buildings, two universities, and any possible organization you want to go to. Add to that, the fact that there has been a huge migration from the provinces to the capital, and all those people have business to attend to in downtown KRT, and all of them have cars. You can imagine the traffic situation fairly easily if your stomach is strong enough.

I have too many visits to take care of today, with little in the way of time to actually enjoy the time I spend with people, and no car to take me where I need to go. Having reconfirmed my reservation for my return to Addis Ababa I am ready to render unto Caesar for the rest of the day. I have made too many promises to visit too many people, and as all of you know, I am not one to welch on a promise. The tale of my visits is probably not that interesting, so I will spare you the details of where we went and what we ate, and the number of times people told me that I look like my father.

What I will quickly talk about, instead, is food. Yes, my favorite subject has finally made its way into the blog, but not just because I am a greedy guts. No, the reason I want to talk about food is the fact that food in Sudan tastes better than it does anywhere else in the world. This is not an idle boast, but a simple fact. Ever since I arrived I've been struck by the flavors of things - even salt tastes more like salt here than it does elsewhere. The meat is more tender and savory. Even the fatty parts are quite delectable and melt in your mouth. I go out of my way to eat them in the Sudan. Vegetables are crisp and full of color. Their aroma fills the room when you are slicing them up, and their flavor fills your mouth as the aroma fills your nostrils. It is all in all a perfect experience for the senses, and I find myself eating with the kind of gusto that has lately been lacking in my eating in the US. Pedro, I found myself thinking of you often as I ate because you're always on at me about my poor eating habits Stateside. Frankly, I feel a little bit justified now since it's mostly fodder to me over there anyway, but I do understand what you mean. I wish you could visit Sudan and taste the food that I've tasted, so you could see for yourselves.

Yet in spite of all this great olfactory sensory advantage the Sudanese populace is shifting in a visible way towards less flavorful food. Like everywhere else in the world, the Sudan is experiencing a shift towards tasteless, mass-produced food. This is most clearly seen in the restaurant boom in Khartoum. They range from a very few up-scale restaurants, to a large number of local eateries with coarse local fare. The up-scale places aren't so much better than their more pedestrian sisters, differing instead in the ambience and a few menu items.

What makes the restaurant craze in Khartoum so mystifying for me (apart from the food quality issue) is the traditional place of restaurants in Sudanese culture. In the past, restaurants were the province of strangers, and people without families. The quality of the food was never comparable to what you could get at even the poorest homes, and while it has improved, it still does not touch the type of meal you'd eat at home. The clientele were invariably men, usually bachelors, and of very modest means to say the least. All of this has changed dramatically, and you can now see men and women, well turned out, eating at restaurants together. The key is on the way they dress and the fact that they are eating together. Once again, this is a major shift. I can only suppose that this is the local face of globalization.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/24/2004 2:27PM (12:27AM 12/23/2004 Khartoum)

Merry Christmas, America, and I hope you have as much fun in the next couple of days as I had last night. We held a karama last night at our house. A karama is basically an occasion to celebrate a success, newfound health, a birth, or anything else worth noting with some thanks to God. Frequently an animal is slaughtered in thanksgiving, and used to feed the throngs that show up to the party. Family and friends come around, eat, drink and be merry. Since our karama was held in the evening (and on a Thursday night to boot), there was also dancing and live music by Ahmed "Silver", the fanan or artiste. The topic of Sudanese singers is a long one, and enough for a whole separate post, but for now I will say that this "Silver" is the musical flavor of the month in Khartoum, and my cousin and her friends were very excited at the prospect of his coming to sing for us.

The whole thing was organized in less than 24 hours by my aunt (yes, this is exactly how my family operates, in case you were wondering), to celebrate my mother's safe return from Paris where she had a minor procedure performed last month. It was also held to celebrate my own minor achievement of last month. My cousin and I spent most of yesterday driving around town, buying supplies, paying for things and being called every 30 seconds with something else to get. Upon our arrival at the house we discovered that all my female relatives in the capital had descended upon the house to help with the preparations. We had already gotten a cook to take care of the food aspect, and the young men of the family were taking care of the chairs, tables, and so on, so they had nothing to do but sit around drinking tea and chatting about this and that. It was still nice to see so many people there earlier than necessary, and to know that the family is so tightly knit.

We held the actual party in the "other" house, which is to say that there is a house in the neighborhood that is my family's, and we are staying with my aunt. The other house has a larger yard so we decided to hold it there, so as to accommodate all the folks we knew would show up. Around 9p, people started showing up, in all their finery. The artiste had shown up a little before everyone else and set up his gear, a keyboardist and a drummer in tow. I was dressed in a navy blue jacket and a great chocolate and blue shirt (when you see it, you'll know how bad ass I looked), and everyone that came in seemed impressed in that "you clean up good, kid" way. They also had taken up the habit of calling me 'arees, or "the groom". Apparently I'm not allowed to wear a blazer and not be getting married. Coupled with my mother's oh-so-innocent revelation the other day that someone had mentioned to her the rumor that she had come to Sudan to "marry off her son", and you can see how I started to wonder if this was some sort of trap. Everyone was shooting knowing looks at me, and at each other. Fear not, though, dear reader, I emerged from the evening unscathed, unencumbered, and generally free.

The dancing started up early enough, with my cousins taking the floor to get things started. My younger cousin is in her second year of college, and has a group of girlfriends that are very much like her, which is to say, Sudanese party girls. The connotations are not the same as they would be for their counterparts in the West, though. This bunch just took control of the dance floor and basically held on to it all night, dancing with some abandon and much glee. I moved in and out of the dance floor, as often as I could, but as you all know I am a mother hen at parties I am ostensibly hosting and took lots of time to go talk to people and photograph them, and shmooze. All of this is, of course, is immortalized on video tape, which of course I will willingly show for a steep fee, and the signing of a confidentiality agreement.

Due to the repressive nature of some aspects of life in Sudan we had to have a permit for the party (late night noise) and the party had to be over by 11p, so around that time the artiste wrapped up, and people started talking and streaming out in dribs and drabs. I spent the next couple of hours walking people to their cars and waving last goodbyes. By the time I went to bed it was about 3a with 5 days of work crammed into the last 16 hours, and a tired smile draped across my face like an old coat.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/20/2004 2:39PM (12:39AM Khartoum)

One of the things that the casual observer will notice almost immediately in Sudan, is the rash of weddings that is going on around here. Weddings are a big part of the social calendar in the Sudan, popping up so often that you begin to wonder if you're the only person who isn't getting married in the next 6 hours. Since my arrival I've met many friends, relatives, and former schoolmates who are now married. They frequently have children (yes, plural) as well, which is quite uncanny. The sight of your "bad ass" friend, who spent his time raising hell in your youth, chasing some little rugrat around is the sort of poetic justice that one rarely sees in life. "Don't touch that! Get back here! Damn it, boy!" Homer Simpson lives...

I have several theories on why this rash of weddings is occurring, or rather a series of contributing factors. First of all is the fact that this is relatively conservative society, and so people "don't get none" prior to marriage. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, there are places on earth where you have to take care of your own business until you get married. It's no wonder then that people marry earlier here than, say, in the Netherlands. This makes the premium on getting married while you're still young and dumb that much higher. This sounds more cynical than I mean it to, since there is a lot of religious reasoning for why one should getting married sooner rather than later. "Marriage is the half of religion," the saying goes, and that needs some explanation. Religion is mostly about relationships between people: you and your Maker; you and your parents, your children, your neighbors, and so on. When you get married, your relationships change with everyone, due to your newfound responsibilities. Or so the saying goes...

The other factor is more cynical. The entertainment factor is a big contributor to the sheer amount of weddings that take place. There's really not much to do on any given evening. Entertainment in the country, for the longest time, was limited to social interaction with family and friends: going to weddings, funerals, or simply going to visit. In recent years the avenues of pleasure have been widened and began to include renting movies, or going to public parks (particularly near the river), or getting ice cream. Most recently the expansion has been into the realm of restaurants and cafes, where there is much to be made. I'll talk more about the restaurant craze later, but for now suffice it to say that it is only a recent occurrence. Since funerals are somber occasions (and working ones, at that), and visits are typically casual unless there is a formal social reason for them, the main reason for folks to get all gussied up is a wedding. Weddings are also one of the few acceptable places to shake your moneymaker, although this has come under some attack in the past decade and a half, with the current government's conservative posture. As dour as the Sudanese tend to be, they are still susceptible to a kickin' groove, so the dance party aspect of weddings went underground for almost a decade. In short, one should not underestimate the importance of weddings for general entertainment.

Another compelling argument for marriage in the Sudan is what I like to call the "Sudanese Dream". Like the American Dream, it is pervasive and quite subtle in its effects on the general population. The Sudanese Dream is to get an education which is embodied by good grades; to get as high a degree as you possibly can, preferably in some engineering discipline or medicine; to get married to a nice man/woman, from a Good Family; to have a mess of children; to make the Pilgrimage to Mecca; and to die peacefully. While the make up of the Sudanese Dream seems innocuous enough, it can be quite insidious. It leads to an unnecessary rush towards big decisions, and dare I say, adulthood. There's nothing worse than kids trying to grow up too fast, and the Sudanese dream makes growing up too fast into a desirable thing. This is not idle speculation but the observation of someone who was part of a generation that was taking college entry exams at the age of 16 - and that's not the youngest age for people trying to go to college. I shudder to think about the other kids who took their college entrance exams early and where they are now. College, marriage, birth, pilgrimage and then death. This is the dark side of the Sudanese Dream and you can see it at almost any wedding these days.

The final point that brings marriage up in any conversation after the age of 20 is the life span of the average Sudanese these days. This is mostly speculation, but in recent years I've noticed that the life span of the average Sudanese male (for example) reduced drastically. There are several examples in my own family of premature, natural deaths. People far too young die of conditions that are easily remedied, but because they are ignored or unknown, are in fact fatal. In this sort of atmosphere, people want to see grandchildren even more quickly than they usually would anywhere else, and there's only one way to get those around here...

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/19/2004 4:18AM (2:18PM Khartoum)

I have, in my time here, been a little bit tight-lipped. I know this. I know that I've been somewhat laconic in my posts, and there is a reason, I assure you. It was due to an internal struggle, the harrowing details of which I will share with you now. Writing about my country (and I still consider it my country mind you) is a difficult thing. It is in many ways, a wonderful place, full of wonderful people, who are intelligent, loving and fun to be with. It is also, unfortunately, the land of a thousand and one maddening things. But as a native son made good, it is difficult for me to discuss the bad side of living in the Sudan. Not because I deny that there is anything wrong with the country - far from it! I am quite open about the problems facing the country as a whole, and the irritating (or down right self-destructive) habits that its people have. Yet I feel that it is the height of poor breeding and the sign of a bad upbringing to be mean about your country. More than that, I realize that many of you have never been to the Sudan, and have no impression other than the ones you get from:

a- your church
b- Fox News
c- reading this so-called blog

and not necessarily in that order. So I want to make sure that I don't give you to many bad impressions. It's a thin line that I am walking of course, and it is made more difficult by the fact that the Sudan is quite familiar to me, which makes it more difficult for me to notice the everyday magic that I would notice in another place. In short, the bad things stand out, and are more likely to make it to the blog, but they are by no means the representative face of the country.

After that lengthy disclaimer I can talk a little bit about a lecture I went to yesterday morning. The lecture was entitled "Assessment of conflict affected populations in Kabkabiya & Kutum Localities, North Darfur State" [all capitals theirs], and was based on a report compiled by the Sudanese Environmental Conservation Society (SECS, which is an unfortunate acronym if I ever saw one). Gil, you'll get to read it when I get back. Specifically the report was put together by a Gallagher look-alike, Prof Muawia Shaddad. I will state up front that the findings of the report are quite interesting and I think also useful for aid agencies in the region. The data was collected well and I have few complaints with the results of their analysis.

Where I do start to take exception is in the presentation of the data. The presentation I saw was one of the worst I have ever run across in my life. Mind you, I've spent the better part of the last decade in engineering departments, where Comic Sans was the font of choice. I certainly didn't expect to see it in a forum such as this. The bulk of the presentation involved cutting and pasting the text of the report onto slides, with some sort of terrible color scheme with a graded gray diamond motif (horrid). The tables that were shown took up the entire slide, but managed to use a font so small that I could barely make out headings and numbers, despite the fact that I was in the front row. The graphs that were used consisted of dark blue bar graphs with black numbers - on the bars. Frankly if I didn't have the report in front of me I would have been lost. To compound the confusion, the laptop was manned by some guy with a type of digital epilepsy that caused him to advance the PowerPoint part of the presentation far ahead of the actual presenter.

I could have dealt with all that, I really could. After all, as I said, the data itself was sound, and the report was remarkably type-free. What made the entire thing maddening was a combination of two unforeseen factors. The first was a hitherto unknown Sudanese propensity towards particularly garish and obnoxious ring tones, coupled with the fact that people left their ringers on. The very height of unprofessional behavior, if you ask me. The second problem, is the willful insistence of people to remain ignorant of the effect of the damned ringing. Once the first damned phone call has disturbed the talk, people ought to be looking to their cells to make sure that they're turned off or to vibrate or whatever. Instead, the phones keep ringing and - get this - people keep answering them in the hall itself. I about slapped a couple of people, but in the interests of peace in Darfur I kept the proverbial "it" in my proverbial "pants" and sat it out. It was a long long lecture...

The whole thing was made worse at the end. The poorly equipped chair of the panel opened the floor for questions, and that set off the peanut gallery's inane questions. Everyone would begin by thanking the panel sincerely for the "excellent report"; a report that they obviously hadn't read, considering the questions they asked. The whole thing put me of a mind of any one of a thousand seminars I had to sit through in college, except these people had no real excuse for their terrible questions. They managed to sound even more ignorant as they took the findings of the report terribly personally, which was entirely beyond the point. The thing that Gallagher did right was to answer the questions clearly and concisely, and to bring up the point that we in the Sudan have a tendency to blind ourselves to problems, and to take those problems way too personally. I'm sure you all have your own anecdotes regarding that and me.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 4:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/18/2004 12:04AM (10:04AM Khartoum)

I had a pleasant surprise today. My cousin who has been away has just returned. He was working in Libya's Western Desert, as a field engineer working for an oil services company which shall remain nameless (they are not the one with shady ties to the Vice President). He returned to us in fairly good shape, and with many stories to tell about his time in the oil fields. He'd been out in the field for almost nine weeks, spending two of those in training at the corporate training center in Dubai, and the rest out in the middle of nowhere. Since they are working in a "hardship" area, they get 2 weeks of vacation for every 7 weeks of work, and so he has decamped for the end of the year. The camp, as he described it to me, is a series of prefab boxes in a flat area among the dunes, with barracks, a mess hall and a lounge. They spend some of their time at the camp, just eating, sleeping and filling out reports, but the majority of their time is spent outside the camp, on "jobs".

"Jobs" require a field engineer or two or three to truck out to an oil rig, and perform some sort of service for the client. I'm still a little hazy on what these services entail, though I gather they involve helping out with drilling problems, making deep sensor measurements and so on. The jobs happen when the rig is not in use (time is almost literally money in this environment) which ends up being between the hours of 2am and dawn. At this time of the year those are the coldest most miserable hours of the day, and that is amplified by the wind, which has nothing to stop it as it gallops over the surface of the desert. The job has to be finished quickly, to enable the rig to get going again, and the next job always seems to be waiting. The whole thing reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes out to the oil fields in west Springfield to work as a "roughneck" with Lenny.

His return was not just a surprise for me, but for pretty much everyone other than his brother, his brother's wife, and me. We picked him up at the airport at three in the morning, and argued for a moment or two about whether or not to take him home. We quickly came to the conclusion that ringing the doorbell at 3am could only mean that something terrible had happened, and would most likely prompt one, if not several, coronaries. Instead we went back to my cousin's apartment, and talked for a while before falling into a deeply exhausted sleep. My oil field cousin (or OFS, as he's now known) passed out almost instantly, exhausted from the weeks of work, leaving me to toss and turn for a bit before drifting off myself.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/16/2004 1:15AM (11:15AM Khartoum)

Another shooting star last night, and I wonder what this portends. For the time being, I am staving off the vague augurs of the Sudanese skies and enjoying my vacation here. A lot of it is sensory and tactile and I am reluctant to tell you all about it, else you should think me either a liar or a big softy. Neither of these is preferred of course, but I did say that I would relay most of my adventures, and I am always one to keep my promises.

I spent the morning at the University of Khartoum, my almost-alma-mater. There was a time, not too long ago, that it was the premier institution of higher learning in the Middle East. In the sciences and engineering, especially, it was pre-eminent, but no longer. Post 1989 it has experienced a drain on it's intellectual wealth that is hard to quantify without sounding alarmist, or even paranoid. Now it's a shadow of it was previously, but it is still a good school that turns out some excellent students. It is also a great campus, with it's large, lush trees, shading wide quadrangles, and it is there that I met a former schoolmate who now teaches Physics there. Yet more proof that I am in fact and old man, as if I needed anymore. While we sat and talked under the shade of a large tree, a pavilion nearby came to life with an exhibition on Sufism. While I would usually be quite supportive of that sort of thing, I found myself eyeing it suspiciously, since in the current atmosphere of religious zealotry it will most likely be misused, or used to misrepresent a peaceful and beautiful expression of faith. Our conversation was soon cut short by the beginning of a seminar in the pavilion.

During my approach to the university that morning and now, as students gathered for the seminar, I began to notice something. No one was wearing a t-shirt but me, and in fact, every young man I could see was wearing a button-up shirt. In fact, I only saw one other fellow wearing a non-button-up shirt, and that was a long sleeved one which was more like a sweatshirt. Coupled with my experiences in Addis Ababa the whole thing underlined the gap that lay between me and my kinsmen in many ways. As close as I am to them, I am still ... different, just as I am different from my new countrymen in the US. At any rate, that is neither here nor there, and I try not to make broad societal statements based on the fashions of university students.

The afternoon was interesting as well, with my visit to the office of a friend I had not seen since 1991, when he was at a high school in central London and I was gadding about town with no college prospects in sight. We met up in the market of Khartoum 2 (boy, I need a whole post just on the names of places in Khartoum, and the Sudan in general), where he was sitting in a sleek VW sedan. He hadn't quite remembered me when we spoke on the phone but seemed enthusiastic to hear from an old school chum. He immediately perked up when he saw me, calling me "[Lo fat Mo] the genius!". It made me feel embarrassed, as well as being a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. We drove out to his home/office, and we had a bite to eat while we went over the 13 years, though not in detail. It's a strange thing to meet up with the kids you knew in high school. Since the idea of a reunion is quite American, we don't really have anything similar to it here. Instead you just try to keep in touch with folks and make sure you know what's going on in their lives (something that I have been mostly successful at). Regardless, it's always a shock to see your friends with no hair/too much hair/a wife/kids/2.5 million dollars in non-negotiable bonds/etc.

I didn't want to take up too much of his time, and was running late for another appointment, so I made a strategic retreat after our light meal, and went up to meet more friends of the family nearby. That done, I took a bus into town and walked back the rest of the way home. I didn't walk by choice, but the bus routes to take me home were packed with people in the afternoon rush home. It felt good to walk though, and though it was dusty, I found myself ambling along happily taking in the sights of Khartoum in the dying hours of the working day.

By the time I got home, I found a cousin of mine in the living room. I apologized for being late getting home, and not calling (my borrowed cell ran out of juice before lunchtime). After some chit-chat she mentioned that she was going to my niece's house next, just across the river from where we were. I decided to tag along, and we ventured out to try and get across the Fitaihab Bridge - which is currently the only bridge open directly to Omdurman as the other ones undergo repairs. My niece is actually much older than me, and her mother (my cousin) is about my father's age. She'd just had a baby - her sixth, I believe - and was weak with the recent effort, so I sat with her as she convalesced with her newborn daughter. The other children filed in, and I found myself delighted by her youngest son, Bakri, who is precocious and a bright little fellow. He was captivated by my camera, and I let him hold it, and fiddle with the controls on it. He immediately grasped all the playback capabilities of the camera, and how to zoom in and out. I was smiling in spite of myself, reminding him to let his little sisters look at the screen too, as he asked me what each of the buttons did. I was almost sad to leave, and was a bit sad to think that this little fellow would not necessarily have the opportunity to let his intellect run wild. Hopefully, things will go well for him, and he'll stay curious. Don't let the bastards grind you down!

7:22AM (9:22PM Khartoum)

EARTH TO FAMILY MEMBERS SEEKING MY RETURN, DON'T TELL ME EXCESSIVE STORIES ABOUT THE LACK OF A RULE OF LAW. IT WON'T ENCOURAGE ME,

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/13/2004 4:10PM (2:10AM Khartoum)

I saw two shooting stars in a row tonight. I was talking to my newly married cousin outside as he prepared to leave for his new home when I saw them. They both originated in the western sky and arced down towards the south, fading behind the silhouette of the neighborhood mosque's tower. I rarely see shooting stars, and to see two in such quick succession is the sort of thing that makes you understand why ancient peoples took up augury, among other things.

The house has been full of visitors and well-wishers. Mostly they have been relatives, although some friends of the family have been here as well. The surprises are coming fast and furious, as I see young cousins who've started college, and others who've married and even had children. There's nothing so effective at disabusing you of the notion of your own youth as the sight of your younger relatives and friends with their own offspring. A lesser man might go deaf from the sound of the biological clock ticking, but luckily I have reason on my side, and it saves my bacon more frequently than you would think.

This afternoon I got the chance to go out for a little bit between visitors, to visit yet another friend of the family. His family's engineering firm has offices on Hurriya St (Freedom St) in the midst of the Soug AlAraby (the Arabic Marketplace) close to the center of the city. The way there was made very long and unpleasant by the amount of traffic. Like London, and other old capitals, Khartoum simply wasn't meant to have this many cars plying its streets. As a result of the population explosion due to rural migration, the war in the south and simple biology, we are seeing an increase in the number of cars on the road. Like a fat man with arterial sclerosis, the city is finding it harder and harder to push cars through the narrow streets, made narrower by cars awkwardly parked on both sides of the road. While Khartoum traffic was bad when I was living her in the late 80's and early 90's it's even (inconceivably) worse now.

The visit with the family friend went well, though he seems depressed and dispirited by the direction that the country is taking. His melancholia made me, in turn, sad. I wish for his (and all my loved ones' sakes) that things weren't so crummy here, that life and this government had ground the fight out of them, the taste from their food, and the light from their lives. As I've said, the Sudanese are like Russians; they are prone to melancholia, and seem to thrive on misfortune, inviting it sometimes with open arms. This does not ameliorate the harsh hand that has been dealt to them lately, and I find myself ashamed at my good fortunes. Not that anyone begrudges me that fortune. In fact they are happy for me, sometimes happier for me than I am for myself. This serves to make me even more ashamed of course. As I left his office, I saw the unfinished office block that stood opposite to it. It's skeleton had been standing for the better part of 12 years, unfinished, because the owner had built more floors than the zoning commission had approved on his building permit. He did not remove the extra floors and so the building remains at a standstill till today. It's a metaphor for the country in many ways, and its lost potential.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/12/2004 5:20AM (3:20PM Khartoum)

In the movie version of this morning CCR's "Fortunate Son" would be playing and I would be stepping off a bus in rural Alabama. As it stands I stepped off a 737 onto the darkened tarmac at Khartoum International Airport and boarded a bus headed for the terminal. The music was playing in my head as the bus pulled up to the terminal and we disembarked (my mother and I), stepping into the cool of the terminal building. Sudan has long had a love-hate relationship with its native sons. Whereas landing in the US one is greeted by a "welcome home!", in Khartoum one is greeted with suspicion and open dislike. Especially if you are a naturalized expatriate. So you can imagine my surprise when, upon finishing filling out my landing form, my passport was taken by a passport officer before I even got to the windows. He proceeded to go to the window, grab the stamps and finish up my entry procedure before asking me if I had any bags or anything. When I said I had one bag and my mother had two, he asked where my mother was and, when I pointed her out in the Sudanese nationals passport line, he expedited her entry as well. We got out of the airport with such speed that we were afraid there'd be no one to meet us outside.

My uncle, aunt, and two cousins were outside waiting for us. My mother had been deliberately secretive with the details of our journey so as to make sure that the entire family didn't show up at the airport at 3am to greet us. So just a few people were there and I found myself getting choked up - I hesitate to think about the spectacle I would have made of myself if there had been more. After more than three years of not seeing them, I was finally home. There are no words to describe the feeling of being in the place where you belong. It's a feeling of relief so deep that it's like sinking into a warm vat of honey. Everything slows down for a second and you are surrounded and lifted. We came back to their house which is one block over from our own home in Sudan, and stayed up for hours just talking.

Waking up this morning another of my cousins had heard that we'd arrived (through whatever faster than light communications systems the Sudan seems to have developed over the past several thousand years) and had come over. I woke up to his voice outside and after embracing we sat around talking over breakfast, tea and then a light snack. He is slightly younger than my sister and is earnest in the way that some young Sudanese men are, but with a quick, inquisitive mind that augurs well for his future. He immediately peppered me with questions about everything from my work to how certain types of technology worked. Before we had woken up a sheep had been slaughtered to give thanks for our safe and triumphant return to the bosom of the family. This will probably be the first of many sheep that will be sacrificed and then eaten during my stay.

It's mid-afternoon now by Khartoum reckoning, and so most of the house is dozing away their siesta time. I can't sleep, I'm too excited about the next two weeks, and still agonizing over the people I may not get to see. Still, I'm here and that's the most important thing.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/5/2004 9:17AM (7:17PM Addis Ababa)

Between the last post and this one a great number of strange events conspired to keep me from writing anything at all. For instance the laptop was down for five or so days, due to some meddling at Addis Ababa customs. This of course puts me in a position because so much stuff has happened that I may not be able to do justice to it all. So bear with me...

The second to last night in the UAE was wonderful, partly because I saw my good friend and his son, but also because we visited one of the more beautiful spots in Al Ain. In Arabic, the name Al Ain means "the fount" or "the spring", and the city itself boasts a large number of natural hot springs, the most famous of which is Mabzara. Mabzara bursts out of the ground at the foot of Jabal Hafeet (Mt. Hafeet), the highest point in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The mountain itself sits on the border between Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Oman, jagged and somewhat forbidding, adorned only by the green swath around the hot spring and a winding string of lights on the road to the summit of the mountain. The evening that we went happened to coincide with a national holiday, so the entire area was swamped with people, barbecuing on the vast lawns, walking around, and enjoying the sybaritic pleasures of dips in the spring. The spring itself comes out slightly up the slope of the hill and then flows down through stone-lined canals to various bath houses and shallow wading pools. At the spot where the water comes out it is almost boiling hot, and it continues to steam almost all the way down the half mile of the canals.

Unprepared for a dip in the life giving waters, we instead drove up the mountain. The road winds back and forth ion its way up the mountain, a brightly lit, perfectly smooth surface. At the top there is a broad plateau that is so high that the view is reminiscent of that from an aircraft at 30000 ft. The view also provides a rough measure of the relative prosperity of the UAE and Oman. While on the Emirates' side the landscape flashes and sparkles, with the city lights strewn across the plain, the Omani side is dark. Not just dark, it is completely dark, a complete and inky lack of any light that makes you feel like you are staring out over the edge of creation. This sensation is amplified by the cold wind whipping across the summit. All in all it made for a wondrous final night in the Gulf, and served to offset my crummy flight back to Ethiopia.

As I sat in my cramped middle seat, soaking in the stench of my seat mates, I thought fairly hard about my stay in the UAE. The place has changed a lot since I saw it last, as I mentioned in a previous post. Still, there are things that stick with me. Most importantly is the part that my family has had in making the UAE what it is. In the late 1970's my uncle, still a young architect, moved to the Emirates and took a job with the city government in Al Ain. Being very competent, and also one of the few qualified people in the area, he found himself getting more and more responsibility. My uncle soon found himself drawing up the city plans for Al Ain and then for the city of Abu Dhabi as well. Anyone driving through those two cities is driving on roads my uncle laid out on a piece of paper, in a desert that hadn't been developed yet.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/11/2004 10:11AM (8:11PM Addis Ababa)

It is strange to watch the American run Arabic language satellite television channel Al Hurra (the Free One). It is immaculately produced, especially in comparison to it's dowdier cousins in the region, and features programs that are intended, I'm sure, to endear American culture to the "Arab street". I don't watch it often, but when I do I am struck my one particular thing: commercials for the upcoming Iraqi elections. They are broadcast frequently, and take several forms:

- three mobs approach each other on three streets. They wave different flags, and are shouting some sort of slogan as they glower at each other. As they stop at the intersection and violence seems imminent, a child peeks out from behind an adult, spying another child in the opposing mob. They rush out to greet each other, obviously friends, and you notice that they are wearing threadbare jerseys of the same soccer team. As they embrace the adults find themselves ashamed of their inability to get along and sheepishly step out to embrace each other, the flags mixing as the shot from above recedes.

- a montage of smiling women sewing together an Iraqi flag, and intent men building ballot boxes. The music swells as the sign saying "polling place" is put up, the ballot boxes are brought in, and schoolchildren watch the Iraqi flag being raised.

- a montage of people from different walks of life (and obviously different religious backgrounds) with their thoughts about the future broadcast. They are all hopes for a brighter future, dreams for a future career, or subtly worded hopes for a secular Iraq.

We've all heard about the moves that the US is taking to encourage the Iraqi elections, and to improve the image of the country in the region, but it is only when you see the tangible results that it really hits home.

Speaking of home, I am leaving for the Sudan at midnight, for two weeks. I'll probably have better access to the internet there than in Ethiopia, so look out for more posts about my travels.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/3/2004 4:38AM (3:38PM Abu Dhabi)

The last time I was in the United Arab Emirates, it was 1983 and there was sand everywhere. Everyone was thin in the way that all nomadic people are, with aquiline features and fuzzy eyebrows. The country was dusty, and barren, a desert kingdom in the most stereotypical sense of the word. That was 21 years ago. Yesterday I got to Dubai, the gleaming center of trade and industry for the Middle East and soon the world, and was stunned. In the intervening years Dubai had become something completely beyond my ken. The airport was clean and efficient in ways that left Heathrow and JFK in the dust, with marbled arcades and arching glass ceilings. I stumbled through it, a worldly ragamuffin, through to the passport control area and baggage claim. Dubai is one of the most open places you'll ever go, since the tiny emirate is pushing as hard as it can to be a free trade zone. I could go on and on about the steps they've taken, but I will simply say that getting in and out is a thing of great ease, and leave it at that.

The only thing that belied all the modernity was the sudden appearance, as I walked through the airport, of a ninja. "Ninja" for the uninitiated, is not an assassin from the feudal era of Japan, but a woman covered from head to foot in black robes with only a thin slit for her eyes (and even that is frequently covered by a diaphanous veil). They are the stereotype of a Muslim woman that all liberal folks in the West point out as proof of Islam's misogynistic bent, failing as people in the West often do, to recognize that this particular practice is limited to places like the recently pacified Afghanistan, and the ersatz friendly states in the Gulf. Seeing a clutch of these ninjas, some in the company of men who were either their husbands or brothers, I found myself staring. Much like yourselves I wonder what sort of life these people lead, and what passes through their minds as they walk through public spaces so isolated from the rest of the world. Staring can be somewhat dangerous, though, considering that the whole purpose of the niqab (as it is known) is to discourage that sort of thing. So I forced my gaze onto other things like the advertisements for Duty Free booze, and the bronzed European faces staring out from a poster for some haute couture next to the moving walkway.

One learns to avoid the muwatineen in these places. The word itself means "citizens", and the use of the word is pointed. Outside of it's most obvious meaning, it implies that they belong here, and you, my friend, do not. They are both the law, and above the law; they make policy, and ignore it; they are both pious and dissipated. Up until quite recently, the only way to do business in the Emirates (and in many other Gulf countries) was to have a partner who was a muwatin. This partner had to own 51% of the enterprise and was not required to do much else. Basically they would sign their name to documents, get a nice office, and never do a lick of work, dropping in only to pick up their handsome checks from time to time. For this reason business has stagnated in most every Emirate apart from Dubai which (due to it's lack of oil wealth) has made trade and commerce uncommonly easy. The citizens, like those of the Roman Empire, enjoy a great many rights, but make up a paltry proportion of the population. Only 26% of the population of the UAE are muwatineen, the rest of the bulk made up of the various stripes of foreigner who actually make things run, from national security to street sweeping. With all these advantages they are predictably fat and venal, filling their days with eating copious amounts of fatty foods, drinking fresh fruit juices and watching satellite television. I am mostly shocked and disgusted by their behavior, and when I remember the outraged attitude of many Arabs and Muslims at their low regard in the world, I sometimes think that perhaps we/they have it coming if this is the best they have to offer. A generation of PG-13 Paris Hiltons.

At least they have good taste in food, because that is one of the things that makes this place bearable. They have here, perhaps the best shawarma sandwiches you will ever have the pleasure of eating. Forget the stale, dry chicken shawarma sandwiches you've had, wrapped in a limp half moon of pita, like a refugee from a drought stricken region of the world. The ones they have here are juicy and tender, with a savory flavor that brought tears to my eyes. The pita is warm as a mother's embrace, stuffed with chicken, pickle, and garlic sauce like that same embrace is with affection. It is nature's perfect food, and never mind that it can't be found in nature. Upon arrival in Abu Dhabi (a good hour and a half on the road from Dubai) my cousins took me to their local shawarma emporium, which is run by the Lebanese in the area. Their full Nelson over this sector of the economy is well-deserved, as they have brought their civilized cuisine to the dusty masses and made us all happier. Mind you, this is not the only thing that these wily Levantines have control over, but that is the subject of another post, perhaps. In this particular arena I bow to their superior knowledge and watch on, patient and in awe, as the mu'allim or maitre of the shawarma, slices tender pieces of meat into an open pita, adding slivers of potato and pickle with a dollop of sublime garlic sauce. I ate two in such a short time that I wondered that they had ever been there in the first place. Perhaps it had all just been a dream? I could not linger over these thoughts, as we had to head home to wait for my aunt to get off work.

My aunt is a wonderful lady. She looks like a shorter, roly-poly version of my mother, but it much more garrulous, with a manner of speech that leaves your hair swept back with its speed. We went to pick her up at the University of the Emirates, where she has been working since my cousins were old enough to be relied upon to take care of themselves at home. From the moment I saw her I felt my heart go out and my knees follow it. I hadn't seen her for such a long time that I wanted to immediately start weeping as I hugged her and kissed the shock of white hair in her forelock. She sat behind me as we drove back to the house, asking questions about my parents and my flight. She kept talking as we got into the house, and into the living room, and as I brought my laptop out, and as we watched the video files of my cousin's wedding in late October that we had both missed. My mother had given me copies of the files knowing that my aunt, uncle and the cousins would be desperate to see what had transpired at the wedding and who'd been there and who hadn't. Wedding videos are a big deal to Sudanese living abroad, as they are the last palpable link to the celebrations that are going on in your country as you range the world, protecting common sense and earning an honest buck. Between the videos, and just general conversation about how the family was faring we ended up staying up till almost four in the morning. She managed to be up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8AM or so, waking me up at 9AM to eat breakfast and keep talking.

My poor aunt! She is so lonely out here in the UAE. Like my mother she is finicky about who she will befriend, which, combined with how busy life keeps her, makes her fairly isolated. Like her sister (my mother) she is so close to our family that this distance between her and them is like a weight that sits on her chest. It is a constant reminder of how she is at the periphery of our family life, relegated to watching the rest of the family celebrating births, marriages, and so on, without being able to really take part. More-so than either myself and my siblings, my mother and aunt are affected by their lives as expatriates, suffering silently, and stoically, away from the people who they love. So this trip was of paramount importance to me, since it gave us a chance to see each other, and drew her close to the bosom of the family for the few days that I would be here. The visit would recharge us both, and make the intervening months till the next visit more bearable. Of course, this leaves me with yet another dilemma (who is surprised by that?), which is that I also have friends whom I haven't seen in many years, living here, and I want to see them too.

In 1991 I moved out of my parents' house, to Alexandria, Egypt, to begin my university studies. I was 16, brash, and so wet behind the ears you'd think that Davy Jones and I were sharing locker space. Far away from home, I was befriended by a bevy of young Sudanese guys who took it upon themselves to help me grow up. They were the closest thing I had ever had to older brothers and I formed very close friendships with them before I moved back to the States to complete my education. Many of them had been raised in the Gulf, by expatriate parents, like my aunt, and returned there when their stay in Egypt was over. Some returned even before I left, and I had slowly tracked them down, or been surprised by them tracking me down in the meantime. So to come here and not see them would be just not right. I set about calling the only two I knew still lived in the Emirates first thing this morning after eating my breakfast and drinking morning tea with the family. Both were overjoyed to hear my voice and in a state of disbelief that I was even in the country, and one, it turns out, lives 20 minutes down the road. He immediately drove down to see me with my aunt at a small museum nearby - with his son in tow.

This is the first time I have seen the offspring of someone I went to school with so long ago (it was practically high school for me, remember), and it hit me like a ton of bricks. My colleagues have gone off, gotten married, become useful members of society, even, while I fiddled around in college. Now, you might say that I got some sort of degree out of it, and you'd be right. And you might say that I got a lot of friends out of it and you'd be doubly right. But deep down inside, I was a little bit sad and a little bit jealous watching my buddy talking to his son. Crazy, huh? Now, let me state, for the record, that I neither want a wife nor any children just yet, and that this was a momentary lapse of reason, but it certainly did have me thinking. Life has been passing me by, and like Rip van Winkle, I have awoken in a world I remember faintly, that has changed immensely.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

12/2/2004 5:19AM (4:19PM Addis Ababa)

I am somewhere over eastern Ethiopia or the Red Sea, on my way to Dubai. While this might seem somewhat unexpected it is just part of the "vacation". My aunt lives in the UAE and I have not seen her for three years. Being this close means that I have to visit, and in fact in the throes of my tummy trouble yesterday I took time to book myself a flight to the UAE for today. So here I am, on a plane, in a cramped seat which is made somewhat more comfortable by the fact that it is in the exit row. I can't take any credit for the exit row seat though, the PA did did the legwork. This lead me to further look at my previous post regarding being in the lap of luxury. The fact of the matter is that there are some perks to being my father's son, though they are not all measured in dollars and cents (or Birr for that matter). The exit seat is not what I meant, so much as the brief trip from the house to the airport. We drove past the usual parking lots, and off to a separate lot right by the entrance to the terminal where the car was saluted. We bypassed the lines at the counter, at the service desk, and at the outgoing passport control desk. I practically didn't have to talk to anyone as I made my way to the gate. It's an eerie thing, watching the protocol machine at work, knowing that our money doesn't power it, so much as the position my father has worked very hard to get to in his career. Sitting here in my cramped (yet spacious) seat, watching the Simpsons on the small screen in the middle of the aisle, I realize that things are pretty good for the Lo Fat Clan.

That brings up a second point: on the way here through London, and now on the way to Dubai, the in flight programming is all American. It's faintly concerning that I can watch Everybody Loves Raymond in the company of a planeful of Ethiopians, Kenyans and other Africans. Not that anything is wrong with Raymond, just that one would hope that there would be something better to watch out there. Unfortunately I am quickly reaching the conclusion that good television (yes, I know it's an oxymoron of sorts) is hard to come by. Most evenings, when I am not gadding about town with my old man, or visiting folks with my mother, we settle down to a bit of television before heading upstairs for some pre-bed reading.

Like all the expatriates in town, my folks watch satellite television. They tune in to ArabSat 2 or 3, I can't remember, so they get the satellite channels of the Arab world, from the polished international channels of Al Jazeera and MBC to the rough around the edges local broadcasts of Mauritania, Sudan and others. Watching these channels you get several impressions. Firstly there is the news, which has a different slant than the news you see in the states. The second impression, which stretches from the news to the talk shows to the commercials, is the Americanization of television programming all over the world. The anchors are young-ish women, some blonde, some not, usually of flanked by an older gentleman of the heavily coiffed variety. The talk shows discuss the unhappiness of rural types, with an overly-solicitous host gleaning embarrassing details of their travails, and troubles. Does any of this sound familiar yet? This shouldn't sound so surprising, since the format and details of television programming in the US are not happenstance or coincidence, but much studied (usually via focus group) for maximum consumer stimulation. The third, and also unsurprising thing, is that the quality of the programming is fairly poor - that is to say that the copies are not good copies. When you don't do the studies yourself, you don't know why they use the bright colors, or why the images have to move so fast, just that they do.

Those are the "modern" channels, which, as I said, appear to be just like American channels but in Arabic. The other channels are not quite like that. I will roll up the Sudan, Mauritania, Libya and others for the purposes of this discussion. It is actually unfair to even bring Libya into this, since they have some pretty well-made shows. Watching the news on the Sudanese satellite channel, or Mauritanian national television, is a painful thing. The real stories come from Al Jazeera, or CNN or BBC World. The local stories are poorly produced propaganda pieces. Now bear in mind that all news has some propaganda aspect, especially local news (those of you in Arizona can look to Fox 10 or ABC 15 for evidence), but there is a big difference in the subtlety of it all. Propaganda poorly done, shows a profound lack of respect for the viewer. We are all lied to, all the time, but when no care is taken to craft the lie properly it's just insulting.

The news is hardly the only bad bit of programming on Sudanese television. We watched a movie the other night, that had perhaps the worst acting I have ever seen in my life. Dead lifeless eyes, dialogue with no inflection at all, and overwrought scripting made for an absolutely ghastly experience, but like a train wreck there was no looking away. Instead I watched the whole thing with my parents, mystified that this was the best the Sudan had to offer. Would you choose this as the representation of your nation's artistic output? After all, there's always, Everybody Loves Raymond.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11/30/2004 11:16AM (9:16PM Addis Ababa)

I was talking to a former roommate once about some financial woes of his, and when I suggested he swallow his pride and ask his folks for money he replied, "They don't have that kind of money! We don't all have parents who are ambassadors." I took offense at that and dropped the subject. After all I felt that I had grown up in fairly standard middle class circumstances, with the only exception being that we lived abroad most of the time. Of course living abroad on a middle class income enables you to have some help around the home, and even when you don't there are copious relatives who are living at your home who help out - frequently one of them was me. In recent years I have come to re-examine my views on the matter. For instance, here in Addis Ababa, there is a lady who comes in early in the morning and does the cleaning and some of the cooking, as well as laundry, before leaving in the evening. My father, on the other hand, has a driver who drives him around during the day to his various meetings. Looking a this, one would think that we were living in the lap of luxury! But the truth of the matter is not quite so simple. For instance, the "maid" doesn't live with us, as she does in the homes of other foreigners who have household help. She goes home to her family each evening and gets paid about twice as much as a schoolteacher does. Similarly, the driver doesn't pick my father up in the morning, nor drop him off in the evening. Instead he simply carts dad around to his daily appointments, and is off home at the end of the day. He is also given ample time to pursue his university studies in economics. Does that make us any better than the people who have people working for them? In our own egalitarian way I think so. All the employees are treated with great respect and frankly sometimes I think we don't demand enough for our money.

Tonight, I accompanied my father to a reception at the Sheraton Addis, which may be the most luxurious hotel on the entire continent. This is not meant to be a snide remark, or an off-the-cuff sort of thing. It's a statement of fact, and in fact, I am willing to go the distance and say it may be the best hotel that I have ever been in - and I've been in places a sight better than the Holiday Inn, Tempe, let me tell you.

The reception was being held by the Minister of Water Resources, to mark the opening of the Nile Valley Initiative. The NVI is meant to head off the inevitable water resource conflicts that are going to occur Nile River basin. Also it is the beginning of a unified power grid for Ethiopia and the Sudan on the way to a broader unification of services. All that is in the future though, and tonight my Dad and I stood around in a room full of minor diplomats and non-governmental organization functionaries waiting to speak to the Minister, who ended up not showing. Still I got to see some of my newly made Finnish friends, and some others. It was somewhat awkward, due to the fact that of all the people there, I was the only one who had nothing to do with either international cooperation or development. In fact, I was just some guy's kid who was tagging along. That makes it all the more hilarious that I will most likely be the one getting shown on television. The cameras were rolling throughout the second half of the soiree, and kept coming round to the group that I was in. Not too bad, for some guy's kid who was tagging along.

The advantage was getting to meet these people and listen to their discussions. They talked about development from the front lines with the sort of cynicism bred of dealing with inefficient governments, overloaded bureaucracies and generally bloody-minded people. This is the sort of experience that can't be taught in any school, and is hard to come by for newbies to the trade. It's secretly made me more determined to get involved with policy in the long run. It also made me proud of my old man, who was the focus of some attention at the reception. He's not just a funny looking old guy, who happens to be my dad, he is also a man of some consequence. It's a sobering thing to see your father as other people see him, but not in a bad way.

I had lunch with both my parents today, which was quite nice. We went to a charming little Italian place about a mile from the airport. I'm sure that Pedro is currently clucking his disapproval, and shaking his head. Before you do though, let me just say that this place is littered with restaurants, representing every type of cuisine there is. Ethiopian cuisine is fairly standard and there is not much variation as far as I can tell in the different regions. They don't eat much in the way of vegetables, and meals consist of the the ever-present injera covered with some sauce or meat, or both. At any rate it was nice to have a meal with my parents in the open, on the patio of the restaurant. We had my father drop us off far away from the house so we could walk back, which was quite pleasant. We had a walk yesterday as well, which allows me to see the city as it really is, as opposed to from the passenger seat of a car. I had access to the camera today, so I would pause every few minutes to take a picture of some roadside flowers, a billboard, or something else that had taken my interest.

I'm really interested in advertising here in Ethiopia, mainly because it's so different to advertising I'd seen in other parts of the developing world. They're very sophisticated, as you might see if I get the chance to put any of them up prior to my return, else you'll have to wait to speak to me. They show a far more advanced consumer sensibility, which I am ashamed to say surprises me. As I had mentioned previously, I was expecting Ethiopia to be virtually identical to Sudan, but it is seeming less and less so.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/1/2004 2:16AM (12:16PM Addis Ababa)

Everything in Addis Ababa is named Highland. They have Highland Queen Whiskey, Highland Springs Water, and of course the Highland two-step, which in typical Lo Fat Mo fashion I have contracted. For those more delicate souls out there, I suggest you turn away or go read something pleasant. My famously strong stomach has failed me for the first time that I can remember. It has saved me in countless harsh environments where the water or the food were not fit for human consumption, but here in relatively benign circumstances, I am thrown for a loop. It started last night with a late dinner with the folks here at home. Immediately afterwards, of course, I leapt to my feet and retired to the littlest room for much longer than I had anticipated. My stomach has not been settled fully since I've been here, but certainly not anything to write home about (you'll note that I literally did not write home about it), but things were getting ridiculous. I felt like a bubbling cauldron, or a volcanic crater, with huge bubbles of magma growing and then spattering loudly against the walls of the caldera - or in this case, my stomach.

The gastrointestinal distress woke me up early this morning, and kept me up and reading Wired's defense of the nearly indefensible K. Eric Drexler. You know things are bad when reading Wired is your last tenuous grasp of normalcy. As I write these words now, my stomach is making noises that I have rarely heard, and I feel slightly nauseated. I hope this is nothing, because with all my morbid thoughts of the past couple of weeks, I would hate to die like this. Better on the field of battle with Valkyries singing my name.

The other thing that had me awake earlier than I expected was the clatter of birds on our roof. After spending a little bit of time in Addis Ababa one quickly discovers that every house has a corrugated zinc roof. From the second floor of our house, or the windows of a hotel restaurant one can look out over the majority of the city and see the gleam of that material as far as the eye can see. In fact, one gets the impression that they use this material for everything. The advantage of the zinc roofing is the sound that it makes when there is any rain - a gentle but insistent pattering which is perfect around the time when one is turning in. It is just the perfect sound to lull you to sleep. Like everything else, though, the corrugated zinc roof has it's disadvantages, namely the sound of anything other than rain on the roof. Birds particularly make quite a racket, either walking or just flapping their wings. The clatter is loud and startling, and if you didn't know any better, you'd think that there were children up there running around. Pitter-patter of little feet, my ass.

Today was also World AIDS Day. Usually this wouldn't be a big deal to me, since I am an insensitive clod and anyway I don't know anyone with the disease, but around here I've been paying quite a bit of attention. This is mainly due to the fact that there are billboards everywhere cautioning against the disease and the behavior that puts one most at risk. We all know that Africa is currently the site of the fiercest battles against AIDS, but you don't really know how bad it is by just watching the news or reading about it. It's apparently a pandemic, and there are infection rates upwards of 20% in some areas! Needless to say I was shocked to find this out, especially when one begins to thinking of the number of people this entails. So the Ethiopian government and people are understandably worried, and laudably active in their efforts against the disease. This, in particular, as I compare to the Sudan where the disease itself is swept under the rug, and the scope of infection is known to but a few doctors. My cousin, himself a doctor, used to go on mobile clinics to the rural areas in Sudan and came back with horror stories to tell. The degree of government inaction and societal blindness was harrowing, he told me, and the numbers of the infected were stunningly high. Add the stigma that comes with the disease and it's assumed cause (sex, in short, and probably the illicit kind) and you are looking at an intractable public health issue.

Meanwhile, in Ethiopia you can actually see very active efforts against the disease. I was surprise to see, the other day, a policeman with a red AIDS ribbon on. While this may not seem remarkable to all you folks Stateside, where even obesity has a colorful ribbon associated with it, it is quite significant here on the "Dark Continent". Overall their efforts seem to be taking hold here, which means there is some hope overall. though as I have noted previously, this is a very different place than the Sudan.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Despite the fact that I had only really been in Ethiopia for a day and a half I hadn't really gone out, and I felt like I'd been here for about two weeks. As I said, though, I hadn't really gone out during the day, and had spent my days reading and lazing about and wondering how I was going to get rid of this outrageous jetlag. Yesterday we finally went out during the day, and took a drive around sunny Addis Ababa. It was a glorious day and I immediately regretted my decision to save space and leave my cameras at home. Mind you, at the time I had thought that my folks would be here and that I'd use their much nicer (and smaller) camera, but what with my folks being in Paris longer than expected I was stuck at the home of friends and with no camera at all. Once again, I would regret this decision many times throughout the course of the day.

The thing that strikes you first, on a sunny, clear day, is that it is still cold. I had arrived in Ethiopia expecting it to be like the Sudan to a great extent - that is to say, khaki colored and hot as Satan's armpit. Wrong. Addis Ababa's being in the highlands makes it quite cool, all year round. Moreover, it makes Addis a city of many hills and shallow valleys, that make driving quite fun and interesting. The city is populated by some of the most beautiful people you are likely to see on earth, and they know it. Not in a show-off sort of way, but in the sense that they take care of their appearance, and even the meanest person is well groomed and well dressed. However, this doesn't always mean Armani suits and Dolce and Gabana shirts. Frequently it means shirts that have made their way from somewhere else, with some english phrase on them. The colors work, but the phrases leave a lot to be desired. "God Bless America", Sisquo t-shirts showing the singer's dyed blonde hair, R. Kelly t-shirts, and finally the improbably sighted "Phoenix, AZ, USA" t-shirt. Not what I was expecting, exactly. Still, the folks layer their clothes and have a good sense of colors, which leaves their Sudanese brethren in the sartorial dust.

Driving through the market places one is quickly fooled into thinking that Ethiopia is like any country in southern Europe, which is not entirely true. Behind the clean facades lay some depressing slums, shanty towns that can be seen by looking down any of the narrow streets that separate the blocks of stores. This is not surprising, although it is sad of course. The shanties cling to the sides of the downwards slopes of the hills of the city. They are built of corrugated aluminum or "zinc" and whatever materials are at hand, and they are quite small. Large families live in cramped spaces, and one wonders about the public hygiene of such areas. Access to these jury-rigged neighborhoods is via narrow, unpaved alleys, and rocks jut out of the surface of the ground at odd angles, a reminder of the volcanic past of the area. A quick drive through one neighborhood that my host had nearly moved into, and would have had it not been so far from work, revealed a surprising bit of graffiti: "Ja Rule". Hip hop lives, my friends.

Noting all of this I rode on, with my guides: my avuncular Sudanese host and a former student of his, a young Ethiopian who had just returned from getting his M. Phil. in Norway. Between the two of them they told tales of the city, from the heavily fortified Israeli embassy to the last remnant of the Communist government of the country, a tall spire topped with a hammer and sickle and some statue at the top that we couldn't make out. I suppose it was lauding the "workers" and their struggle. I was particularly impressed by the newly completed ring road around Addis which enabled us to quickly get around the city and see far more shanty towns than we would have been able to taking surface streets. In all honesty though, it's not all so bad and it appears that the government is making attempts at gentrification, including building subsidized housing. The land around the city is stunning, and resembles the south of France. We got lost in it for about 20 minutes - on purpose of course - and only turned around when it appeared we would be leaving the county proper. We headed back and stopped by a hotel for a quick cup of tea in their rooftop cafe, before heading back to the house to change and rest before dinner.

We had dinner at a restaurant called Jenet (which is similar to the Arabic word for "heavens", Jannaat). It was slightly hidden, in a little nook off Cape Verde St.

aside: all the streets in central Addis Ababa have been renamed with the help of a consultant. They are named after African nations and major landmarks. The street I was staying on was Rwanda St, so named because it is the location of the Rwandan embassy.

The restaurant was far more spacious than I had expected it to be, and furnished in the traditional Ethiopian style. The staff was dressed in clothes made of the particular cloth that one finds in Ethiopia, sort of a mix between linen and canvas. It's very comfortable and frequently is embroidered with bright red and orange and yellow thread. The restaurant featured a dinner show, with traditional dances from all of the Ethiopian provinces, performed by two men and two women. I must say I was captivated! Their dancing was amazing, not simply because of the beauty of the dances, but the fact that they so closely resemble Sudanese folk dances, and even the ones that we dance at weddings. Moreover, they reminded me of being in a club in Queens, because some of the dances had made it there. The final dance from the Walayta people in the northeast, looking like Michael Jackson dancing.

The ones that really took my breath away were where the men came out with sticks and danced around the women, who twirled their heads around so fast that it seemed as if their necks were broken and were twirled by some invisible puppeteer. They spin so fast that the dance culminates in the women fainting, literally, into the arms of their partners. Another beautiful dance is a sort of pastoral one, part dance, part pantomime. The two women are picking flowers or whatnot when they are accosted by the men, who flirt with them playfully. The women dance and the men watch them, finally throwing a gauzy shawl over one of the girls and taking her to the side. There the couple both sit beneath the shawl, hidden, as the other couple flirts. It was made more fun by an overzealous audience member who kept getting up and dancing with them. He really got into it and underscored another difference between them and Sudanese, namely their liveliness. They are a people not afraid to dance and not afraid to take the happy moments when they come to them, and I love that about them.

My parents were landing late that night, and had been very secretive about their arrival. I ascribe this to my father's time spent in service with the CIA. Eventually we tracked down their probably arrival time and since it was to be around midnight we retired to the Concorde Hotel piano bar to wait it out. We arrived just in time to watch our octogenarian Wayne Newton launch into his rendition of Lionel Richie's "Lady", and some Jerry Lee Lewis tune. I know it's hard to believe but he was pretty good, and was soon joined during the break by a stunning young woman in tight white trousers and a hooped sleeveless shirt. They talked and he eventually serenaded her, which just about knocked me out of my seat. It was not to be, and the bird flew the coop, leaving him joking at the bar, before ending his set with James Brown's "I Feel Good". Which was our cue to leave for the airport.

The reunion with the folks was wonderful, as I knew it would be. I crept up behind my mom and shouted out her name as she was walking out of the international arrivals. She got all teary eyed as I hugged her but didn't really cry outright, which made me so happy. We walked out to see my Dad at the other end of the airport. Apparently he's some sort of VIP now, which is an interesting turn of events! At the house we just talked and talked, late into the night, enjoying each others' company, before drifting off to sleep. I regretted not having my things with me (they were still at my host's house) but it was good to be home nonetheless.

aside: We woke up this morning to the sound of our door being knocked on. The neighbors had slaughtered a sheep for themselves and one for us as well, because of the occasion of my mother's health. Another sheep (this one live) was delivered to the house around noon or so. Apparently, we'll be having it slaughtered this weekend to mark the auspicious occasion of my finally being done. There is talk of inviting the Sudanese community at large. I see a very busy month ahead ...

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11/26/2004 3:57PM MST (1:58PM Addis Ababa 11/27/2004)

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to find myself in a bar in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia listening to someone sing Ray Charles tunes in a piano bar. And yet here I was, my father's friends having decided to take me out for a night on the town. After dinner at the home of a Finnish diplomat (don't ask, I have no idea how it is that my life takes these turns), we made our way to the home of an older Sudanese gentleman and all together went to the Concorde hotel. The hotel itself was a terribly curious place, set as it was behind a Mobil gas station, as if the hotel was part of the "stop 'n shop" portion of the gas station. Still, there was a valet who took the car and parked it as we made our way into the lobby and then left, into the Piano Bar. At first the music seemed somewhat shrill but was over quickly as they switched between singers. The second was a beautiful young woman with a halo of reddish brown hair surrounding the hair at the front of her head that was pulled back. She had high cheekbones and almond eyes, and was dressed in a very short dress and knee-high boots that laced in the back. I was quite surprised by her appearance, but not as much by the rapt silence that overtook the crowd of besuited, and besotted fellows who had obviously come just for her. As I finished my orange juice she started to sing, and her voice was simply beautiful. Her set consisted of 6 songs, three in Amharic, the rest being Sudanese songs, which are inexplicably popular in Ethiopia, She resembled nothing so much as an 80's singer in the late Donna Summer/early Tiffany mold - but better.

She was followed by an even more improbable act, an old man with his head shaved clean, in a blue suit. Before I knew what was happening he was singing "Nighttime in Georgia" followed by "Unchain My Heart". This octogenarian Wayne Newton was off and running with no real end in sight. He moved from song to song, throwing himself into the lyrics and belting them forth with an impish smile and a wink at the ladies. Not content to just sing, he was swaying and moving his hips, an Ethiopian Tom Jones. My companions informed me that he could sing in 9 languages, and as if to prove them right he started to sing "Di Me Quando" in tremulous tones that would have been applauded in Barcelona. I was flabbergasted and a little star struck when he sat down at our table, apparently familiar with the gentlemen I was with.

I would like to take a moment to tell you something about Sudanese culture. While the Sudan is a Muslim country, there is quite a bit of drinking in it's culture, specifically for men. There is a certain generation that started drinking the local hooch when they were in high school and progressed to Johnny Walker whiskey (typically Red Label, although Black Label is imbibed by some of the more refined gents) as they did their post-graduate studies in England, France or the US. They all drink the same thing, whiskey straight on the rocks, or whiskey and water, and it is usually accompanied by a certain amount of male gossip. Under no circumstances are women involved (I've never seen any) unless it is to provide the snacks that they knock themselves out on, and no children period. So when the gentlemen I was with offered me a drink I was very taken aback. Now I wasn't necessarily ashamed to drink in their presence, but my life is compartmentalized in a way most of my friends are familiar with. Since I associated Ethiopia with Sudan, and Sudan with my youth, then no drinking could take place. These gents weren't having any of it and ordered me a bottle of the local beer, Castel. It was a light pilsner and not so hard on the system, though I am still not at fighting weight so to speak.

Upon my return we moved to a different bar, called the Tropicana. This was more of a local place, and you could feel it in the atmosphere. Beyond the full compliment of local fellows, there was another live dance band with revolving lead singers. This one was distinguished by a saxophone to complement the ubiquitous keyboard. The singing was heartfelt and the crowd much more lively than the one at the Concorde. I contented myself to sit, still feeling the effects of the jetlag, but noted the gusto with which the patrons got up to dance. The Ethiopians are proving themselves to be a generally fun-loving bunch, particularly when you take into account the diversity of the crowd. Impressive, to say the least. It has certainly changed my view of Africa, which I am sad to say was formed by my travels in the exclusively Arab-Muslim parts. I am trying not to get spoiled though, because the Sudan with all of it's lovable, repressive idiosyncrasies is next on my itinerary.

PS what a windfall of connectivity I've had! This can't last long, so don't get spoiled....

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11/26/2004 4:38AM MST (2:38PM Addis Ababa)

Landing in a foreign country at night is a surreal thing. All you see on the approach are the lights of homes, streets, etc, outlining the arteries of the city that lay below. There are some differences to be sure, approaching NYC is to approach the core of a galaxy, while approaching Khartoum is the outer spiral wing of that same body of stars. In the darkness you can't see dinginess, or cleanliness, or people or trees or anything. All you see are the scattered lights, and the result makes most cities look more or less the same. It is upon landing that the differences become slightly more visible.

Bole International Airport is not what I have come to associate with Third World airports. The new terminal, where I disembarked, resembles the new terminal in Charles de Gaulle, Paris. A modern jetway juts out of the glass and steel face of the airport and docks with the airplane. Walking down into the terminal, there is a concourse completely covered in marble, which has a soapy pure quality to it. The place is well laid out and the airport staff well dressed and extremely neat. I should have expected as much, since Ethiopians in the US are so much more fastidious than their Sudanese cousins. The only sign of inefficiency came as I waited in like to get my visa on arrival, walking from one window to the next and then back to apply, pay and then collect my passport. A man cut in front of me, with an Irish passport but not an Irish name or accent. At 2am one is inclined to beat him senseless with his own shoe, but lacks the will and energy to do it. Regardless I got my passport stamped with a handsome visa, and entered the baggage claim area.

It is truly a remarkable thing to find yourself somewhere wherein you are the majority. To be able to look around and see a sea of faces that resemble your own. One forgets about it when one is away, living amongst what are essentially foreigners (not in the usual sense). There, every face you see is not a reflection of your own and so you slowly lose touch with the face you see in the mirror. Here, on the other hand, the faces in the crowd are the one in the mirror and vice versa. They start to speak Amharic to you immediately, until your simple smile and shaking of the head let them know that you aren't Ethiopian. Gathering your belongings you walk out into a larger sea of people in the marble, steel and glass main concourse, and see faces that are even more familiar since they are Sudanese faces. They take your hand and greet you warmly. It's the feeling of being home, even when this isn't home; it is the feeling of belonging, where you don't quite belong.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These are not, as you may assume at first glance, sexual euphemisms. They are actually the names of towns I saw as my cousin drove us back to their house on the A3. I've managed to stay an extra day in the UK to see some family members I hadn't seen in a while, and bask a bit in the weather. After living in meteorogically monotonous Phoenix AZ, it's quite the treat. Although the strange names of places definitely make for a surreal experience amidst the relative normalcy of urban London.

I've found that in my short time here I've become more and more desirous of being the cause of an "ugly American" episode. I can't help it. Every time I look at a smug British face I want to start shouting about how "they owe us for pulling their gibblets out of the fire during dubya dubya two!" and how their internet sucks.

Speaking of which, what kind of way is it to run a 21st century economy with such limited access to the inter-web-net? The only wireless network I found as at a loathed Starbucks location and apparently they're still running 802.11a or something primitive like that. What use is a wonderfully sleek laptop if you can't show it off to the local yokels? Fortunately there is some connectivity though as you can see I have to wait far too late for it to become available. I don't know what I shall do when I am in "Darkest Africa" although I gather I'll have an easier time overall. No need to worry gentle reader, I will do my level best to provide you with the very best in lo fat travel writing.

Now I have to go insult the Queen. Ta for now!

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11/23/04 9p GMT
Ladies and Gents, the Lo Fat is currently over the Big Pond, and more cliches are in the offing. I will attempt to put down here the overall impressions of my trip if not the complete details thereof in the manner of a modernday Gulliver.

We can start with a short discussion of the dour and sour folks who were on the plane with me. Never before have I seen such a miserable lot on a flight anywhere. I'm not sure what it is about the English but they manage to look humorless even when they are in fact having a "great time". It may be that the thought of returning to Blighty fills them with dread - and why wouldn't it? - but I can't see how that can keep them looking like someone had done something unpleasant to their dog.

Fortunately for me, I have found the secret to relaxing and successful travel.

That's right, I sleep. I sleep from the moment I got onto the plane, till about an half an hour before we land I am completely dead to the world. This comes in especially handy, whether or not there is someone talkative next to you on the plane. So I performed my trick, and like clockwork woke up about 40 minutes outside of Heathrow.

Upon landing I discovered something I had hitherto been unaware of. It is the bliss of having an American passport. No visas, no questions, no nothing. The last time I had come to the UK, I was a filthy foreigner and was given the third degree by the officious immigration beak who was walking through the train as it passed through the Chunnel. Not so this time, when the fellow manning the passport control booth was not only quick in stamping my passport, but pleasant to boot! Wonders never cease! This is, I suspect, only the beginning of the ease that the US passport will be extending to me in my travels.

I made my way out of the arrivals area, deposited my bags at overnight baggage storage office (unthinkable in the fear-ridden United States these days), and got on the Underground.

This train is for Cockfosters

Said the proud display on the side, and I thought to myself how enlightened Europe was, where you could have a train say that. I turned the pod on high and proceeded to watch the people coming on and off the train. I got an eerie feeling watching the bland whitebread folks getting on and off, and beyond them the brownstone houses along the rail line. It was all reminiscent of being on a Brooklyn or Queens bound subway train, except without the everpresent Puerto Ricans that make NYC what it is. In fact, I found that even upon arrival at my uncle's underground station I was finding it hard to distinguish between London and NYC. This effect was amplified by the Starbucks coffee cups everyone was carrying, the gaudy Christmas decorations, and of course the fact that I couldn't hear anyone's accent. Douglas Adams was right, in the future there is no time travel because the past has become so much like the present, which is to say that all places look the same. What's to be done?

A nice meal at a cozy Iranian restaurant and a nap in the afternoon have me feeling quite good, if a little fat. Nothing to look forward to but the second leg of the trip and some visits with other family members in town before the airport.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)